Heidelberg,1954 Poem by Doug Lane

First there was the polio scare
shutting down
Little America's pool.

When it was
finally deemed safe
to re open
I, age 5, was in heaven.
Mom took me
to the ladies'
changingroom.

Shemust have
thought me
too innocent
to notice
the forest
of black bush.
They all must have
thought me
too little
to be
a threat
no matter
what I was thinking
or how piercing
my stare.

We changed
and joined
the chlorine-smelling poolside crowd
swinging to
the summer's hit:

"Hey mambo,
mambo Italiano..."
Heidelberg hadn't been
bombed as heavily
as Hamburg,
but there was still rubble
beyond the pool's fence.

And every morning,
every evening,
flowed rivers of cyclists
past the Neckar,
never saying a word
to us
of their defeat.