Oakland CA, 2013

 

Auntie circumvents direct

questions. She turns the camps

 

into the mild weather today, or

a sale at the fabric shop. But 

 

when we get an Irish coffee 

or share a wine tasting she’ll let the crack of light 

 

under the doorway of memory show four students 

running from the library dropping as each passes 

 

the guard tower. Remembers the twitches and pages 

flutter away up and over the barbed wire. Or school 

named by number. Or the time a neighbor accused 

her of stealing a golden eagle statuette. Or beating 

 

the bully with an umbrella for the first time to prevent

a second. Or Jack, “who suffered the most” under 

his father, as the oldest, emasculated, imprisoned. We sip

something fruity from Sonoma until the last dregs 

 

dribble onto the woven cotton placemats. The next day

these dark red spots remain; they won’t come out. She didn’t escape

 

unscathed. Jack turned into a bear with blunted horse-teeth. She, into 

a totem of birds, or a dragonfly mantle hovering above the family lemon tree.