IN THE LONG V OF WINTER
The shortness of winter days,
and the longest of dark nights
drove my girlfriend crazy when
she refused to allow me to leave
during the stink of Kristallnacht
in November, 9/10 of 1938.
Speakers on Nazi trucks bellowed:
Deutschland uber ales! Swastikas
shone in all the soldier’s eyes.
Madness was in the toxic air.
A slice of evil lodged in my brain.
Overhead geese fled in the long V of winter.