*
***
a first and final bouquet
for karavaichuk [1]
and my ghosts
outgrowths of imaginary friends
are with me
i was 15 and she was 15
and she died
a single flower
how could he
if i were her boyfriend
i’d have filled her whole coffin with flowers
she was crossing this very road
when she left his place
my mama says
again i was absent
i fainted in St. Nicholas Cathedral
when the funeral service began
and they carried me home
an elderly health and safety teacher
and mama, who taught biology
under my eyelids i saw angels
in bell-shaped gowns
trumpeters
not real
waking up at home
with a concussion
i removed my necklace
a turtle-shaped pendant, a silver cross
the image resurfaces
each tree, distinctly
each structure, distinctly
each stone floor, distinctly
each glass ceiling, distinctly
each silence, heard
*
[1] Oleg Karavaichuk (1924-2016), eccentric Soviet/Russian composer.
*
***
sveta writes
she needs nothing
she’s already cried a bit
read a bit
watched a bit
walked a bit
chatted a bit
listened a bit
eaten a bit
drawn a bit
ridden the train, the bus a bit
i wouldn’t have managed
but she managed
she broke in half
and stuck herself back together
so
*
***
new norms
before hitting send
i correct my bio
from poet to poetess
all the same
*
***
then there’s my first love
she got herself a husband
a photo in her wedding dress
and a new last name
she doesn’t love him
her new name has an e
where her husband and mother-in-law have ë
an optional pair of dots
but we sat together for a year
in language and literature class
tanya had written otherwise
that it’s normal
it’s our genetic heritage
from apes
to see dots in the hair and on the body
on oneself and on one’s partner
searching for bugs
(yet i’m still afraid of those magnifying mirrors
in hotel bathrooms)
*
***
little sasha can do cartwheels
when things turn out good
or bad
she sprawls across the rug to study
stares forever at the telephone
her braids atop her breast
are damp with tears
she thinks about food sex and money
whispers
i want sveta to love me
i want sveta to love me
gets an incoming call
clambers up
does a cartwheel
remarks to herself
how her braids have grown out
how lovely it must look
*
***
while
sveta was an icu nurse
at children’s hospital no.1
she cried only once
the doctors could not revive a girl of eight months
i sat across from her as she cried
after that she never
took a break at work
and never cried
at night
to keep from sleeping through her shift
sveta would set three alarm clocks
and place them in a large saucepan by the bed
not once did i wake up
she’d climb over me
to shut them off
very carefully
*
***
mama mama i should never have been born
a dew has settled
a frost knee-deep
lena, this is my mama
mama, this is lena
and glancing
from left to right
from right to left
*
***
i’m plenty grown up
enough to go online and read the rules for all the games
that i never played
with the other kids in the yard
because i couldn’t figure them out
more complicated still are young ladies in cafés
the attentive young men before them
the other
nearly thirty-year-old women in chatrooms
their games
they conclude and everyone goes home
i’m going home, too
cops-and-robbers always blowing right past me