Which for so many months now I'd thanked Jahweh
yes Jahweh Himself,
that no one else had yet found!
No, not even our next-door neighbor's children who-when we two
weren't around; & they came back from their monastery school,
or their butterfly hunt that fled through the fields,
so close to that camp, every afternoon, every single afternoon–
Used to make a "game" of opening our cellar door,
&
then searching
thereabouts
wi
th their flashlights, at twilights
With their puppy dog, "Fritze";
&
sometimes, too, with our other
dear neighbors' dogs
&
children...
...And so, suddenly, there was a commotion of motorcycles stopping,
&
Arnoldt
&
I laughing, with that poor old broken bathtub
far, ever so far, far behind us
&
We two (in two Kapo sidecars) carrying two light packages
Containing two toothbrushes, two combs,
&
two brand new sets of pajamas,
one hairbrush
&
also one fine nightgown
Plus one bottle of good Moselle we'd gaily taken, all for our overnight stay,
"Experimentally" as we planned it (for truly it just
had
to be experimentally)
-For just as Arnoldt said, to get us to come to Camp that way,
&
to
give up & go there so easily
It was clear that they just
had
to agree!
-And besides that, there were two gift packets of cigarettes which,
as those two Kapo drivers themselves pointed out,
Had been given to us so generously...
. -&
Yet it's also true that just as soon as Arnoldt had marched upstairs
to get me that very first night, with that very first copy
He said they'd said, of the "Gray Announcements" to be given out
(With Arnoldt holding it in his
teeth,
&
with Arnoldt also holding up
both arms as if in surrender before me, as if for a joke
&
with
a loud laugh
