her

1.
it started with silence,
then a baby’s wails
and a mother’s happy tears.

2.
she was six years old
when the war started. 
her parents silently cursed 
the red 
under their breath. 
her uncle did it less quietly. 

3.
he disappeared a year later,
after he’d sent a letter to the authorities.
he’d asked if they would consider 
not sending the general’s children
to their tiny town. 
no one saw him again.

4.
she didn’t remember the first time
she saw a daisy. 
but she gathered a handful to take back to
her room, 
so she could look back on beauty
and see that it 
does
last. 

5.
she walked to school
under the light shade of trees. 
planes flew overhead, 
and she couldn’t remember what life had been 
like before. 

6.
her brother was tricked
into leaving. 

(he came back,
with a dead arm, having seen the land between
eastern Poland
and western Germany.)

7.
she moved away and worked
in a tiny store,
where she met a famous American
singer. 

she moved away and settled in
an apartment 
across the ocean. 

8.
she met him in a dance club 
in New York City. 
her life blossomed from there. 

9.
eventually, the song had to end. 

but she doesn’t.