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PROSE POETRY
Luggage that Never Left the Station
Artifacts of misery
Hordes of people with hastily packed bags, suitcases of memories, trunks of sorrows - some old and broken, some with nameplates, but mostly anonymous, forced to leave their homes. These cases are now artifacts of misery, luggage that never left the station, separated from their owners who went to their final destinations — tortured lives and skeletons stacked high.
They are bags packed not for a vacation, not a weekend getaway, but a journey into the dark cries of night, whose victims become smoky wreaths in the sky, and others wearing slavery stripes, tattooed with numbers, bound and shackled, forsaken, defaced, and left for dead.
The owners never retrieved their luggage, their remnants of victimization piled on a station’s platform, holding a sacred history — abandoned like orphans — faith destroyed, haunted by its memories.
The luggage is all that remains to hold the victims’ scent, touch, style, the inside of their hearts, the reflection of their children, and the proof that their humanity existed. The suitcases are leather and shiny—round, square, and oval—some tied, and some locked tight, bulging with the past, hoping the world finds them a home.
© 2024 Mark Tulin
~I wrote this poem after visiting the Holocaust Museum of L.A. and with Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, in mind. World War II was the bloodiest war in human history, with 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths.
