Who Would Believe, and: German Helmet, and: Generations

Who Would Believe

Who would believe we were allowed to roamThe gardens, museums, cities of the world.Its blazing lights, feathered things, Picassos.

Who would believe a woman's thigh and yellow silk.The taste of lobster with the sea still in it.Lilacs so reckless they perfume the whole room.

Many times they told us we are only passing through.It seemed incredible—snow, magnificentOrchestras, trees that turn themselves

Every color of fire. Were these not enoughFor a greedy god? How is it that the same handObliterated villages, crowded tiny flowers

Like salvation over mass graves in the clearings.

German Helmet

One of the boys lugged it to the porch.One poked it. One cracked a joke. Then someonegripped the rim, patted it like a dog.

And nothing happened. No yellowburst of sulfur. Yet touching what a real liveNazi once touched felt electric.

One by one we overturnedthe neck-stunning weight on our heads,the dark closing over

eyes ears nose deadened as the inside of a bell.Perhaps some dull glimmerof a thousand-year rule, the truth of killing.

But this was when we were immortaland thought nothingof falling down dead, getting up, laughing.

Generations

Headstones like crooked teeth,the old plot foreverreverting to birch and pine.

With bow saw, loppers,soft hands twistingscrub like a hen's neck,

he'd have it out with naturethen sit where he would lieyears later as if testing

a hard new mattress."Of course now a boycould carry down the line."

The lemonade'd be warm,the sandwiches leaky, piein its shallow tin, sealed.