a lady named Edith Rogers
speaks on occasion
at the college where I work

mother and baby brother
lost to Auschwitz
she’d survived the holocaust
by hiding in Stuttgart

I give students extra credit
for attending
sit in back to make certain
they’re not fucking off

saw a girl in front of me
daughter of a dimwit
I’d gone to high school with

she had her phone out
texting ‒ scrolling ‒ texting —

I started getting pissed

angrier the longer I watched

but she wasn’t my student
so I kept quiet

just like those guiltless
oblivious German gemeinschaft—
I swear we didn’t know
what was going on in there