Standing together
over a sinkful of dishes
her few small words
stop my breath
“He lived with us
while the Germans
occupied our country”
“A Nazi?” I ask in disbelief
“We weren’t the only ones,”
she explains,
“We had no choice”
“But, a Nazi?” I ask again,
to be sure
She flashes her ‘Don’t be stupid’ look
“Of course, a Nazi,” she says
“What was his name?”
She shrugs, annoyed
“I was seven!
How should I remember?”
Thinking up German names—
Heinrich, Hermann, Horst—
I imagine my mother’s Nazi
to be ‘H-something’
“What did he look like?”
She frowns
scrubs a dish with vigor
Soap sprays the window
“It was a long time ago,”
she says
but her eyes drift
beyond the window
beyond our yard
“What do you remember?”
I ask,
gentler this time
Wearily, she begins
“He ate our food,
took over my room,
I slept in the kitchen”
Displaced, I’m thinking,
already displaced
“And I remember
the strangest thing”
Her hands slip absently
into the scalding water
and I watch her flesh redden
“He always came
to my birthday parties”