Vielleicht

(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Apple corers—at least two with copper handles.
Small knives. Can openers.
A couple of objects that appear to be
some kind of metal clamp.
A great many tea strainers (aluminum?—no, tin).
Potato peelers. Graters.
What a lot of apple corers! (Poland today is Europe’s
largest producer of apples.)
A big pile of glasses cases.
Razor parts, hair clipper parts.
Keys, thermos bottles, coffee cups.
One big red bowl with a handle.
A really large quantity of tin tea strainers!

Small items, small enough
to be brought on board the wooden railroad cars
under a woman’s skirt.
Vielleicht, somewhere she would find some tea.
Vielleicht,  her captors, 
not, vielleicht, entirely
cruel after all, might give her some.
And, vielleicht, there would be a way to heat water,
or at worst the water would remain cold,
and she would pour the water
through the tea in the strainer,
vielleicht, into the tin cup,
and the remnants of her family would squat in a circle
and drink the tea together.
Or, vielleicht, somewhere on their journey she would find
an apple, carrot, or turnip,
and she would use the corer, the peeler,
and, vielleicht, the little knife
to prepare a modest meal.
Then she would put a bit of nourishing peeled apple
into the child’s mouth
as they rested together
on the floor of a house, vielleicht,
or, vielleicht, on the ground in the woods.

These few helpful implements she’d saved—
small items, small enough
to pack in her small cloth purse—only to learn
when she had reached her journey’s end
that she would not be allowed to keep even these.

Such small hopes—
so light
behind the dog-irons of history.

                                                                                                                                                                May-September, 2014