Mannheim

​

I did not cry the first time I went to Mannheim,

when my father and I studied the nameplates

listing the residents of the building on Ifflenstrasse

where his mother had been born, and grown up.

The building she left one April day in 1938, just in time,

 

and had never re-entered.

I did not cry even when the current second-floor residents

invited us in, and I stood in the high-ceilinged rooms 

where my great-grandparents had withstood the Kristallnacht.

In the photos my father snapped 

to show my grandmother, back in Brooklyn,

I am smiling.

 

I did not cry the second time I went to Mannheim,

when my father and mother and sister and I toured the city, 

armed with Grandma’s handwritten maps,

and visited the shiny blue synagogue.

From the hotel we telephoned Brooklyn

before driving away on the Autobahn.

 

The third time, the train from Stuttgart stopped.

I descended to the platform.

And the signs read,

Mannheim.

This time my grandmother was gone.

Not just from Germany.

But back in New York her namesake had just arrived.

I blinked a few times. Bit my lip.

Stared at the sign, and swallowed.

 

Then I walked, fast, through sunbaked streets,

straight to the department store

where I bought the baby a sweater 

and tiny socks 

before I hurried back to the train station.