Conceit

Alfred Wolfsohn will tell her that “art is bound up
with self love.”
                But they haven’t met yet.

In 1936
Berlin
institutes of higher learning are all but closed to Jews
and Lotte is a Jew.
            Furthermore, she’s thought to have no great
artistic gift.
Ironic then she should have thought:
                         “Perhaps I could learn to draw,
                      that might be the thing.
        Perhaps
I could learn to draw,
                         I’d really have a fling.”
Maybe not ironic,
maybe harmonic; maybe not harmonic,
maybe just bad verse.

— ELANA WOLFF

(Originally published on-line, February 1, 2001.)