Derhachi

They sent her a letter with the photo once.
Her bones took the shape of their handwriting.
The letter was delivered by the friend from the DP camp.
The woman kissed me
and left a mark of spit
in the shape of a map on my cheek.

It is not the way I wanted to imagine my grandparents’ hometown,
the four sisters in the photo wounded in the bombing.
It is the closest to war
I have ever gotten.
Their black dresses, stiff against their bodies,
already a sign of mourning.

They ate beets so their lips were red,
confused with blood.
In the end, my grandmother had only the garden,
behind the brick house.
She imagined them all digging up the beets,
eating together.

The glass would have shattered when it happened,
the façade would have crumbled.
The century didn’t matter,
the house was meant to be taken away
by any means.
All they had was the garden.