Liz Marlow

Sara Learns of Franz Stangl’s Death

 
June 28, 1971

I rub my hands together—crumble
clumps of bath salts, lather
soap on skin as bubbles multiply
like blisters from chemical burns.
Too much scrubbing will redden
what holds us together or make it
crack like stale bread. The past might
always remain under fingernails,
in wrinkles as memory whirlpools
down a drain, murmurs until
it disappears. Steam rises—vanishes
hot clouds—forgetting that as water
it once cooled, soothed. Any river
can become a mikveh, smoothing
sharp edges off rocks over time,
the way rain erases names off
tombstones. Faraway, a mountain
reshapes itself in a flood, buries
veils, photos, all that lies at its base.
Here, joy fills an arroyo after a drought
as I listen to someone else’s laughter—
a child’s void of chains, but we link
arms together in dance. I touch
my fingers to a piano, and it all
comes back to me—Mama and I
in a duet at the piano playing, singing
at Passover—Then came the Holy One
who slew the Angel of Death. I grab
at delight like a faint star.
When I finally catch it, I will
never let go of that light
no matter how dim it appears.

Liz Marlow's debut chapbook, They Become Stars, was the winner of the 2019 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition. Additionally, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions, The Greensboro Review, Nimrod International Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is the founding editor of Minyan Magazine.