The Hidden Child
"If Love Had Wings" by Rosa Naparstek
April 1943: Borszczow
Susan Terris
I was good. We were all good
Dutch children — those of us
who survived.
Before the Nazis, Moeder brandished
other threats — potatoes that would grow
behind unwashed ears, rats
that might nest in unkempt hair.
Then jackboots on cobblestone began
to punctuate days and nights.
In our attic room, no soccer balls
or bicycles, no tulips: and sometimes
we ate dog meat to survive.
My daughter asks about the taste.
I say I don't remember.
She probes what I mean by good:
How good is good, she wonders,
keen to quantify. Imagining me
studious, parsing out days
for later profit, she cannot fathom
the card games, flatness, waste.
She says I'm hooded, use
time as a weapon. It is. It was…
One time, when meat was scarce,
those who concealed us
rode their bicycles past Sunday soccer
to dig up tulip bulbs.
We roasted them, peeled the brown,
and ate them. As I chewed,
I thought tulip, tulip and tried to let
the flower I could not see
bloom inside.
Last year when the hidden ones met,
I did not go. I told my daughter
I was out of time.