Lattice is the delicate
but firm separation
between two worlds.
The evening sun
lets almost black
 
silhouettes undulate
on her small blankets.
Her tiny fingers
 
pick holes into the stiff
layer of wallpaper,
where pink flowers
meet pink leaves.
 
Father has told her the story,
has sung her the song.
He now stands cut out
black against the window,
brightly lit dust motes
hustling in the wake
of his breath. 
 
Aegis stolen from a time
when nothing is safe.
                        

Frau Krämer was the village grocer.
Down the main street, left at the church,
right along the village street. Sacks
of beans and wheat, sugar hidden 
behind the counter, barrels with
fermented cabbage. Ration cards,
brown paper bags. I admired how she folded
the open tops of those brown
bags efficiently, rolled them down,
then closed them
by bending the edges inwards.
 
There is a room behind the shop
where she takes me when we are
alone. Like the secret heroin den. Under
the mirror is a big trunk. When she opens
it I stand, hands behind my back, impatient,
but delighting in the ritual. 
Books. A musty smell of adventures
and far-away seas.
 
Dark red covers, dark green or brown, some
with gold and some with black decorations,
very complicated letters, letters that look like
winding plants, paper with golden
or marbled edges. 
 
Stories about girls who fall in love and blush,
and handsome men who want to marry them.
He’ll take her boating, her heart beats
from excitement and anticipation
of the kiss.
 
Very often they must live through an awful
lot of trouble before they can get married.
Sometimes one of them dies. 
 
I know what I want when I grow up. 
A handsome prince who’ll take me away
from being hungry.