Numbers

In a cultural awareness class in 1976,

While listening to a kid from the projects

Complaining about the ghetto,

Eva Gross, an older dark-haired woman,

Stood up and started yelling with shrill voice,

“You. You Americans don’t know what a ghetto is!”

You see, she was a girl

In Warsaw when they walled it in,

Later from Auschwitz

Where the remainder of her family died.

When she pointed at the kid,

Enraged he would name his home a ghetto

And make the word better than she knew it to be,

Her numbers slipped out from beneath her sleeve

Denying forgetfulness was ever an option.

In 1980 my father and I

Built a chicken coop for a wiry old man

With purple/blue numbers on the inside of his arm

Who boxed his way through the camps

To stay alive and end up

In a Wisconsin farmhouse

On a little hill

With and unobstructed view of the country,

An ornery old man

Who’s mistrust of police

Was apparent in the look on his face

When he said,

“The next time they come,

I have machinegun.”