iron and breath

(poem for Tadeusz)

You said: “we’ll
leave behind
iron scrap.”
I read your story
sitting next to a heater
on a bright winter afternoon
seventy years later.
I will use my teeth and
my fingers like claws.
When you awake wherever you are
look around and breathe deep.
Then examine the sky.
Sit against something solid
and please think of me reading your words.
There is something true among humans.