It’s November 2016 and now I think
about my mother in Prague
after 1939, wearing a yellow star,
and walking a circuitous route
to avoid the streets forbidden to Jews.
Imagine a country where this
could happen, a powerful army who hates you,
your property stolen, your home
wrenched away and occupied.
At night you and your mother go out
to the garden to burn the communist
propaganda your sister left behind
when she fled, the smoke rising in thin,
gray wisps in a city you once called home.
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