As a child my mother told me stories of war. Today her words ripple and delete sleep from my eyes. Here there is no barking. Breaths are quiet. Alanson is a Michigan town, miles from sounds and memories.
Animals hide, and grow wild.
Everyone packs redness in their eyes and dreams the night is calm without howling. My German mother remembers body parts hanging from trees and faces agape with incomplete smiles. She tells me of identification by nail polish. She remembers a jar filled with child bones, and a shoe, above an empty slab haunted by bodies. Death is shown in pieces.