Liz Marlow
Yakova’s Parade
Radziłów, Poland Pogrom, July 7, 1941 1
Doll clothes
Bubbe once knitted
from red yarn, once
sewed from tattered
skirts after chalking
outlines to cut
and stitch along, clutter
the floor of our home.
Before the march,
I grasped my favorite doll,
Dinah, to keep her
from fleeing
or losing herself.
Crumbled block houses,
Dinah’s siblings,
and a wagon
they all fit into
while wearing thin
cotton outfits
await our return
in the box
under my bed.
__________________________________________________
On July 7, 1941, with Nazi encouragement, Poles in Radziłów murdered almost all of the town’s Jewish community by burning them alive in a barn.
About the writer:
Liz Marlow’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Carolina Quarterly, The Greensboro Review, the minnesota review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband and two children.
Image: Puppets by Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944). Oil on canvas. 100 x 82 cm. 1943. Public domain.
