Apfelstrudel for Erwin. (Poetry).(Poem)

 
APFELSTRUDEL 
for Erwin 
 
   Beneath the perfect powdering of snow: 
   layer on pastry layer fine as flakes 
   from skin, petals from a rose. They're interleaved 
   with apple, a cinnamonned moistness which sings 
   trickles from honey cells. A taste, a texture 
   never found in English imitations fills your mouth. 
   Tears well in your eyes as time's layers fall--and 
   Mutti's at the kitchen table, leaning over 
   the pallid dough, rolling it thinner and thinner. 
 
   One morning when you were seven you saw 
   red flags with black swastikas leaning 
   from every house but yours, began to learn 
   that you were different, heard the fear 
   in your family's whispered questions. The March 
   before war broke, your mother, brother 
   and you kissed goodbye to Vienna, relatives. 
   Some survived. Your half-Jewish cousin spent 
   six years of war crouched in a cupboard. 
   At school in England you became an English boy. 
 
   Today, we're tourists sitting in the cafe 
   at the Hotel Bristol eating apfelstrudel 
   and sipping ...