WALTER ABISH'S ALPHABET

In novel grains
of minimalist A
followed by B
beyond length
of hurt
waking to
fascism in your own story
yet escaping death
not erased in solace
crashing in a prisoner's rage
of terrestrial history
in a depth in language's
identification of survival
as a heightened cosmic
evidence of crime
yet with comic understanding
in a direction of your italics
from black nuanced diction
of your time
how German it was.