Gathering in the middle of the ocean
and weighting the air,
families can live like this for years.
You never knew your grandfather
was in Auschwitz, only knew
his silence would sometimes erupt,
pushing back the table with such force
he’d make it topple, run with milk
and kids would scatter.
Sudden torrent and the rowers
quickly bring their skiffs to shore.
From the Golden Book of Riddles,
what gets bigger the more you take away?
You were ashamed you didn’t know
what you were never told,
but felt, rusted wire
threaded through birthdays
and spelling tests, winter mornings
hurrying to get ready.
The answer is a hole.
Kids held hands and sang,
the story goes, while London
filled with smoke, ashes ashes,
the bodies too numerous to bury.
And ring around the rosy
was the rash, first sign,
its strands looping the neck,
a pocketful of posies held to the nose
against the smell.
Your grandfather stared out the window.
Did he see the street below,
children playing ball,
or only the air above them,
invisible seam pried open
to let him enter if only he could find it?
You know now he was afraid
to fall asleep, stayed up with his cards
and glass of whiskey, the solitaire
of night’s last hours, a heart
and a spade added to the pile, face down.
When children disappear into the forest
in a fairy tale, the dark enchantments
never let them go. How old was he
when he stopped growing?
You have no idea how he managed
to survive, and now there’s no one
left to ask. At the end, he was fearless,
crossing against the light,
horns blaring, or so afraid
he couldn’t leave his room.
Everyone’s ordered out of the ocean
when lightning cracks the sky.
Swimmers run through water,
their knees high over the waves,
but the last ones, too late, dive deeper
until it’s safe to surface.
Jacqueline Berger directs the graduate program in English at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont. She is an author and poet whose work has been published in numerous anthologies and journals. She lives in San Francisco.