Don’t ever say
I didn’t see it
coming. Put it
on my gravestone:
I was prepared.
I’ve been waiting
for death’s familiar
approach since I
was a child’s
ear to the manic
telling and retelling
of my history.
Not even ten
when my mother’s
eyes widened to warn
be afraid, little one,
as she spun the tale
of Jo Goldenberg’s deli
strewn with bodies,
bombed out, how blood
glass and ash glazed
the cobblestone
walkway we stood on
a decade later.
I tried to choke
down the latkes,
the corned beef,
framed news stories
about the victims
watching me labor.
My mother told and
retold our family perils—
Jews encamped
for slaughter, terror
even for survivors—
as if to condition
a need to see death
nearing, to speak
my killer’s name
if they’ll never know
mine. When their
gazeless eyes glide
past my own, when
I become another
husk for the heap,
what will it mean
that I was so
ready to die?
