Wrong Uniform Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Uniform

I have a framed photo on my desk of three little boys
dressed in oversized German uniforms doing a nazi salute
A black, square box- camera, a picture was taken
in 1946. I was eight years old.
My uniform jacket reached below my knees like an over
an overcoat. it was roomy and warm and shielded me from
the cold westerly wind that blew over the flat landscape
and trees stood permanently bent as elderly people are
I was allowed to keep the/jacket coat and happily walked home
The war (as wars go) had been a mild one; we didn't know
that millions of people had died under much suffering
in the name of a "Hail Hitler."
At home, my mother refused to sew natural buttons on my coat
and rejected me wearing it outside, but she didn't mind
if I wore it inside, as it was warm and we had little coal for
heating when the weather was cold.
The grownups make a child's world difficult so, many things
are forbidden, don't do this, don't do that, an endless warning
against what was daring; I wore my coat till it shrunk and
became a jacket and too tight around my shoulders.