Mother and Daughter With Apples

In the attic at 6 De Lairessestraat,
skillful young men work under low light.
In their hands: pens, carbon paper, blades.
An attic in Amsterdam, 1942,
where the false identity cards are made—
for Jews, or men
slated for forced labor in Germany.
Small apples drowse uneaten on a table;
a thin woman is hungry but will not eat.
With her daughter, she has come for cards.
Her husband has been taken.
In the attic, a good man in a black sweater
braces her with his large hands.
He is giving her all his strength
to keep her from shaking.
She has just cried and, in a moment,
will cry again. Her daughter
looks directly into the lens,
the beginning of a smile on her lips:
sitting sideways in a chair, her hands
rest calmly on its curved back.
Shocking how light she looks,
how composed in her knitted sweater.
Rarely has she had the chance
to smile for a camera. She knows
she is pretty and one day
will be beautiful. The camera
pulls her into the future.

She is beyond the still life of the table,
the wreck of the present. Beyond her mother.
She flirts with the eye of the black box.
Yes, she is vain—a vain child,
a gorgeous vain child in the attic
of 6 De Lairessestraat. The mother cries,
but it is the girl, beautiful girl,
who adheres to the rules of tragedy—
arranging her clear face for capture
so that we may see her disregard
apples, blades, teacups, the lost mother,
the card with her new name
that will not take her very far.