The Immigrant by Julie Standig

The Immigrant

My aunt’s apartment on Surf Avenue
was immaculate. I thought.
Until I had to clean it out. Shopping bags
overfilled, one on top of another—
in every closet, pantry, and storage bin.

I discovered old bank statements,
official letters from Germany—in German.
Letters from unknown-to-us people,
written in Polish.
Letters from Israel,
written in Hebrew.
Letters from lawyers that testified
what was taken, when, how much.
Her ketubah from Bergen Belson.

The linen closet was stuffed with towels,
and between those towels, more letters.
One took our breath away
           They took the kinder, put them on a train.
           We knew we would not see them again.
They took her father’s shoe factory.
They took the silver. The china.
Her hair. They sterilized her at Block 10.
They took her baby boy.

The bedroom closet was packed with racks
of shoes. Row after row after row.
A pair of slippers trimmed in fur. Size 5.
My aunt had small feet.

I clutched her nut-brown sweater to my heart.
It was the same one she wore
for her immigration photo.
She kept everything. And I unearthed it.

Stashed in a night-table drawer—
an evergreen marbled notebook
on dictation and grammar,
two accordion-folded rain bonnets,
in plastic sleeves with the ILGWU* stamp.

Small paperbacks:
Geography (for 7th and 8th grade)
Spelling
Mathematics
The D.A.R. Manual for Citizenship

And her porcelain plate with FDR
and Churchill’s side-by-side faces.
Written on the bottom—For Democracy.

*International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).

*

Julie Standig’s poetry has appeared in Schuylkill Journal Review, Sadie Girl Press, Gyroscope Review and online journals. She has a full collection of poems, The Forsaken Little Black Book and her chapbook, Memsahib Memoir. Lifetime New Yorker, she now resides in Bucks County with her husband and their springer spaniel.