Standing with others

Where your shop had been,

Imagining rows and rows of fruit preserves and pickled cabbage

You in the middle, greeting customers by name,

Guiding me in English to the steel-cut oats.

“Danke schön,” I say, wanting to go on,

But you are busy with customers

Here at the center of downtown Koblenz

Your name engraved in bronze

Among the cobblestones.

Dale Laszig

April 7, 2025