One Way A Child Learns

Maybe I learned about the Holacaust
from grandpa, when he made me
cross out Hitler’s picture
on the German stamps in my album.

Every generation,
collective memory dulls.

We were reformed Jews
living in consumer paradise
light years from genocide,

the only imprint of that past
being the pull of the old ones’
unnamed emotions,

the hush in the room sometimes,
when a child knew
there was only one way
he was permitted to feel