conversations with the memory of a young girl

soles on cold concrete

my bare feet absorb

last night’s chill

I watch parents

with children in strollers

linger in the park

remember a young girl

who lived with her parents

on my paper route

the only daughter

of Holocaust survivors

she invited me in from the cold

fed me cookies and hot cocoa

taught me the story

of Hanukkah candles

this morning, I imagine numbers

marching in lockstep

up my forearm

share with her the story

of our sordid truth as

history repeats itself

I tell her about

crying children at our border

separated from parents

herded into concentration camps

bare feet, empty eyes

souls on cold concrete

9-30-20