My mother tells her friends

My mother is telling the story
Around the dining table
a glass of sherry in her hand.
The guests are fascinated that she is able
To speak so coolly.
They don’t understand.

Katalin listens time and time again
never really hearing what is being said.
Her heart is closed to feeling
Only her mind is being fed.
The years are passing, she is growing
Beliefs about herself, evolving in her head,
As mother tells her friends.

In our threesome family monad
The adults prefer to pretend
‘We’re not Jewish, there’s no connection’
Or something to that end.
We sit around the table
and still my mother tells her friends…

How it is that we are scattered;
it wasn’t just a revolution
That tore us open wide.
No father now to speak of and
Living hand to mouth on the other side.

As she matures, more details slip from mother’s lips;
Where it was that my Aunt Paulette
Had numbers tattooed on her wrist
And now ‘she couldn’t have children
But at least she was alive.’
And something about
‘Being pretty and good at singing,
Seemed to help her to survive…..

So the years move forward
Katalin feels an urge.
A strong desire to find herself
among the scattered splurge,
and like a magpie unearthing gold
Amongst a viral heap
She digs down within her soul
To let her truth emerge.

It’s OK mother,
No more need to tell your tales
The truth is out and
there’s no doubt that you’ve been heard.
Shall we let our children sink into the mire
Shall we feed them stories of victimhood so dire
Or remind them that humanity has come here to remember
That wherever we have played,
we have done so…… as Creator.


Kat Jenkins

Born Budapest 1954, Kat's father's family (all died did not meet) and aunt were all sent to concentration camps. Kat escaped the Communist rule in 1956 and went to the USA.