Remembrance

50 people entails a killing field
the newspaper said
in Berdichev, Telsiai, Belarus;
boundaries drawn
for the purpose of a Yad Vashem Study

A generation or two
that passes into the pogrom
of I.V. drips and respirators

take their cues about
whether to live or die
from sterile strangers who
shuffle languorously
from waiting room to waiting room.