Anna Johns

Johanna catches up with her mother over the phone
and I could have been eavesdropping, if things had been different.
In Berlin I stutter, mit Sojamilch, bitte.
and the waitress says, that will be twenty cents extra
is that okay?

When Thea came to England,
she must have chewed on the words like rocks in her teeth
spoken to her children like tourists.
Was English too soft a language
to talk about what happened?

When she so quietly left
did she know then that she would not go back to Solingen
and that someone else’s grandchild
would trim the vines on her sister’s grave.

She must have known,
not to go looking for God in Germany.
He was not there.
She would not find him.

I learn conjugations by rote
and write verb tables
with the words she used to pray with.