Jessica Ramer
Knit Purl
Jitterbugging all night to Benny Goodman’s swing,
His wife flushed as stocking tops showed under maroon
Taffeta folds whirling in time to “Sing Sing Sing.”
The band struck up “Moonglow”; they swayed in a cocoon
Spun by their arms. He breathed with her, inhaled her scent—
Their steps keeping time to the alto sax’s croon.
Demobbed after the war, Fahrsleben, two months spent
Lugging Belsen’s still-dying survivors—that girl
Who smiled at him—to the white canvas morgue tent,
He sat in the dark, would not look at sheets unfurl
On clotheslines, hunched when wooden knitting needles thunked
Like dirt shoveled on a mass grave: Scrape. Thud. Knit. Purl.
Jessica Ramer is a third-year PhD student in poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi.
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