THE GIRLS IN BERGEN-BELSEN Poem by Nora-Eugenie Gomringer

Anne and Margot
hidden so long under the stars,
covered with little more than a voice,
filled the lines with time
and there emerged what people
call a diary.
The book of days of one became
canon. The other
has disappeared from the earth.
Is sister of and daughter of,
barely so remembered even by the dead.
Mrs Typhoid, though, still recalls
how she met the girls.
She was glad to take the bright one, so admired,
for herself. She makes for good company,
you can rhyme worlds into numbers with her.
And she's light too, light as a feather.
Although they come to a tonne
when conscience adds them one by one
to the incomprehensible total:
Margot and Anne.