Omi German for

grandmother. My Omi

my Grandmother five years

old in Germany

an ice pick

her sister ten years chopping

to put on their

mother's stomach.

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A wool uniform

Fifteen miles

Soaked

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Omi German for

grandmother. My Omi

my Grandmother five years

old in Germany

an ice pick

her sister ten years chopping

to put on their

mother's stomach.

----------

A wool uniform

Fifteen miles

Soaked

----------

A new baby
A brother
A bucket

The alehouse too
far down the
bucket to
carry ice
three long blocks
a bucket
for the
infected womb

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A husband walking miles in his wool uniform

A doctor telling children get ice from the alehouse

A five year old a ten year old running

A mother's infected womb Germany

The Führer framed on the wall

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I remember that suit, you know?
I remember, being so little, looking up

Maybe a call perhaps a telegram
Leave the station now your wife is

--he was so big you know to me then
and his suit . . . I guess his "uniform" soaked

Fifteen miles from Frankfurt to Bad-Nauheim
Fifteen miles in Summer for a son

and he went to speak to the doctor and
the doctor just had us chop more ice

Maybe if he wasn't obligated
Maybe a suit not a uniform
He could have maybe removed

cool her off.

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                                                                      Berlin
Where in 1941 night raids became more frequent to reduce pilot casualties

Where men in uniform would patrol streets ready for raid and then first whistle and then second organize and take citizens to shelters

Where men in uniform would patrol streets ready for raid and then first whistle and then second organize and take citizens to the shelters or just as swiftly to labor camps

Where in 1941 my Omi is in first grade in foster care her mother dead from an infection her father stationed in Frankfurt my Omi picking up pieces of shrapnel for fun