Zombie
Don’t let the legends mislead you;
we’re keen on personal hygiene.
I shower every day, sometimes twice.
I can tell you a thing or two about showers.
I have eaten the flesh of millions,
rejoiced in the sweet taste of blood,
following orders from above,
a mere instrument without guilt.
Look, I am moving towards you
arms outstretched, goose-stepping
in welcome as you step from the train.
This is the law; I am not responsible.
Each dawn, I am reanimated
ready to draw up another list of numbers.
So many zeroes; I am bloated with them.
You call me a bureaucrat, desk murderer
but when the order comes, tendons twitch,
watery eyes open wide in response.
Someone must move. Someone must act.
There is so much joy in this banality.
How it all began, I can’t remember.
There was a time when it was easy
to tell the living from the undead.
After Wansee, everything changed.
Look at my neck; no sign of a bolt
and the stitches have begun to heal.
I walk the streets of Buenos Aires,
innocent as the day I was created.
Martin Zarrop