Eichengrün in Terezín, 1944

By Peg Duthie 

Fingers numb

from lack of insulin

and lack of heat

he sighs

at the tremors

almost thwarting

his placing

of the paper

into the typewriter. 

He is here

because his stationery

did not include “Israel”

within his name.

It had not mattered

that his name was not included

on the US patent for aspirin

back when it had not mattered

that he was Jewish.

He is a man of science,

trained to examine

all the possibilities.

Once upon a time,

they’d earned him homes

and tailored clothes,

a handsome car

and a yacht,

but now

he has nothing

except the truth

so he types

the whole history

of what really happened

at Farbenfabriken Bayer:

his supervision of Hoffmann,

his defiance of Dreser—

Dreser, whose name

appears with Hoffmann’s

as co-inventor of aspirin

in Munich’s Hall of Honour.

A man used to secretaries,

Eichengrün types slowly.

He has never been

the praying type,

but now he prays

he will not run out

of paper

or time.

Peg Duthie is the author of Measured Extravagance (Upper Rubber Boot, 2012). She works at a museum in Nashville and dances from Asheville to New London. There's more about her at zirconium.dreamwidth.org, and she tweets @zirconium.