Litany: November 15, 1942

I was born nine months after Pearl Harbor,
delivered from a Jewish hospital
into a mostly German town
where many would forget, buy a Volkswagen.
Days were filled with ring balogna
sauerkraut and pork ribs,
Grandfather’s cigar-smoked sweater,
a Milwaukee Sentinel spread before an Isinglass
window coal stove,
eyes glazed over, unable to pierce the drizzle
coming in from Lake Michigan, mist
green as park lawns above the dripping smelt nets.
The day said there were no easy catches,
only the steady lowering,
rising of knotted twine,
and the gill openings speaking of death.
Day melts above the foundries,
Red Star yeast plant steaming
under the viaduct where flights of green flies
inhaled the frenzy of their lives.
It could have been a day along the Ruhr,
the slow smoke lifting
from stacks, a grey striped flag
against the sky of night blooming lily,
the same darkening sky, whose
stars form totally different constellations.