My best friend’s grandmother
survived the holocaust.
Lived in a tiny room
off of the kitchen
ate like a bird
yet wanted to be near food.
Others in the house
slept in huge bedrooms
with tall ceilings and sliding glass doors.
She preferred small places
and a window just big enough for a bird feeder.
Sometimes we were invited in
to watch her paint
peered over her shoulder
like two sparrows at a birdbath
watched her dip her tiny paintbrush
in and out of bright, watery substances,
stipple wings with the beak of her pen
crosshatch talons that gave us nightmares.
She sold her illustrations to Audubon
signed her name at the bottom
like a bird’s claw.
Sometimes I find her paintings
in old bookstores
the ones that flew out the window
flapped their dark wings
over the barbed wire fence
past the tower of death
to freedom.
