Occupation Spoken Of
for Leo and Ida Mohr, who spoke German.
1. I Speak it Anyway
I will break
this Saxon speaking
to fit an ocean
within its walls.
I speak a tongue
of steel and hammer
of rumble and noise.
This tongue was cut
from the mouths
of forefathers
in the old land
by men who thought
they owned our words.
I speak it anyway.
I speak it anyway.
2. Love Poem
there is a love more
than can be spoken in
a word with four letters
walls and a roof and
a floor.
when we kiss
we cannot speak.
our mouths are enlisted
wholly — to a love more
than can be spoken in
a word with four letters
walls and a roof and
a floor.
3. Ode to a Cathedral Which Married Jews
You,
romanesque,
ears carved of wood
and bent on a cross
leaning
over us
as we are married.
You
have heard many tongues
German and
Czech and
Yiddish and
Austrian and
Russian, but
we kept our tongues
in our mouths.
You
provided sanctuary
in a dark age
when men swapped blood
over the book
in your walls.
And now,
I am here
seeking sanctuary
in a dark age
where men swap blood
not over books
or your walls
but over my tongue.
4. Night Carried to Germany
We have lost a home.
We have lost a tongue.
It was not cut surgical
with a smooth blade
— No, their fingers dug into mouths
and tore upwards, peeling back
our tongues to our teeth
and cheeks collapse in
and we cannot speak.
The sun sets into a train car
carries us to a land of torn tongues
bloody throats.
We have lost a home.
We have lost a tongue.
We have not gained another.
5. Refugee in a Leopard Skin Coat and Hat
Look in my arms.
See beneath leopard print
and golden hair
— wrapped in cotton,
the tongue you could not cut.
Her wrists will not be scratched
with numbers, nor will they be
shattered and small
beneath your boot,
no, she will live
longer than you.