Music Education

One Friday, after we sang Umiak, Kayak, 
Mukluk, Tupik, and another song
about how Bahama grass killed Cousin Helen 
Brown’s yams, Mrs. Steinberg taught us 
to play a Yiddish lullaby on our recorders.
 
She told us how her grandfather survived
the Holocaust by crawling onto a pile of corpses,
wrenching one on top of him, faking death. 
Even the loud boys held their breath.
 
Wetness glossed her eyes as she packed 
up the instruments she traveled with
from class to class, an autoharp, triangles,
bells for holiday songs, sheet music, extra 
recorders for students who forgot theirs.

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