HOLOCAUST

And the trembling of the sleepless night where everything screams in silence to the unplayed sound of Shostakovich gave way to an ordinary day worn out of time and tinted with mauve machine-guns toppling them over a drop sheer as a crude gravestone nine-hundred and thirty-eight an hour for thirty-six hours a rate never equalled or excelled even allowing for layers of sand being shovelled and pauses for gold-collecting and the time Semashko yanked Lisa's body into position and Demidenko gently wanked his bayonet into her womb