Poetry
Gina
Roitman
static earnest sepia faces
trapped on dog-eared paper strange landscapes drained of colour each photo a story a picture book for a small child alone with her mother me and my mother she is feeding me stories piece by piece photo by photo stories mixed with sobs told in fierce whispers gagging words stuck in the throat I feel the spoon clank against clamped milk teeth is this my zaideh where is my zaideh silence lives in the eyes of these strangers more tragic than any imprisoned princess threatened by a fire breathing dragon my whole family in cinders and inhaled before the dragon was slain before I was born but after the photos here I am Gina Roitman is the author of the critically-acclaimed short story collection, Tell Me a Story, Tell Me the Truth, about the struggles of growing up against a backdrop of the Holocaust. Born to Holocaust survivors, Gina is the co-producer and subject of the documentary, My Mother, the Nazi Midwife, and Me. Ash in My Hair, a radio documentary has aired annually since it first ran in 2005 on CBC. Her writing has been published in The Globe and Mail, Montreal Review of Books, Quills, roverarts.com and carte-blanche.org. These poems are published here with permission of the author. |