After The War

My first day of school was
filled with wonder
carrying Edna’s books
following the path through the woods
past the wartime Nissen huts
built for troops but
filled now with snotnose kids and gypsies
and then up to Orangefield School my
mother says
German Offizieren were put there
when they were shot down

My father was with the Americans then
on the southern ocean run and
my mother would say:
“such cultured men trapped behind those bars.”
and think about it, because
two years is a long time

--30— July 8, 1968, Montreal