History

My daughter,
age nine,
She and her friend
emerge from playing
Barbies and PSP,
watching Miley Cyrus

Playing outside, they told me:

In school last week,
they'd learned about the Holocaust.
Swinging legs,
they are not sure how to process -
Little girl brains and
jump ropes lying at their feet.

Matter-of-fact,
my daughter's friend:
"It is terrible
what Adolf did to all those people."
Her voice louder than she can realize,
more crude -
she can't yet filter her sound.

"It is terrible," I agree,

still wanting to understand it myself . . .

The sudden knowledge
that a woman stood in front of fourth-graders,
in front of my daughter,
and told them.
Was it time?

Looking again -
rosy cheeks,
swinging hair -

I don't know.

And I have read the books,
felt sick to my stomach.
felt my stomach turn
when Wiesel said
It was the first Americans in Germany,
even though it had been such a long time -
long, long time . . .

Worse that part to me in the book
than the hangings
beatings
incinerations
humiliations,
because -
there was all the world,
cozied in one big bed

And I can judge

And yet -
Where am I?
A million other places suffering . . .Where am I?
What am I?

Nothing.
Everything.
The same.
My own cozy bed.

I turn around
hating myself
rationalizing . . .

Next week the girls have a field trip
to a battleground
to look, learn, have a picnic
It will be fun -
where once blood was shed

Anyway -
Oh, yes -
The girls
They're talking
about something else now.

I go inside
to get everyone a snack.