What everybody should know about –

Lorelei Bacht

1.
In kitchens and doorframes, when
no-one else is listening, she overshares
cryptic: I must embark a mission, to find
her sister, the matchstick, buried or lit up
in a ditch. A pine needle in a forest of
black. Black pines, at the end of the line.

2.
With or without the crude geometries
of stars on clothes, there is a nose
that says shifty, that says crooked, that
says I’m after your money. She knows
the counter-jinx: she says it is because
she has always worn thick glasses.

3.
Her favourite non-sequiturs make avid
mention of the hair, the long blonde hair
that endlessly cascades in gold ringlets,
in rivulets, out of the scalp of every other
girl. Valkyries. I had never noticed. Every
random woman known as: Gertrud.

4.
A story. She keeps rewinding it and I will
never know anything past the first few
frames: the soldiers are coming. There is
a bicycle, a bunch of carrots, bunch of
boots, polished to perfection. There is a
pause. People not seen again. People.

5.
I am both asked and forbidden to name.
I am dispatched without information.
I am told and untold, given testimonies
that say ignore. I am a mess. I am not
sure what to say to the little ones. Then,
I am told: they would be dead, by now.

And then, I breathe.