The Oracle at Dachau

The room was not the black hole
of Calcutta, but small enough
for all of that.
Large showers roomy for the living,
filled with ghosts of the dead.
The oracle did not need herbs,
nor chants, nor ritual words.
To those who came clear-eyed
only a sad smiled as shared;
to those who asked, the seer spoke
-- gas as transcendental smoke --
one prediction. Death.
And a slow, mounting sadness at God
and man, who made the predictions
far too easy but still sent an oracle
for all of that.