BeetleBlack

you grab your whistle

you head that way. We were near the end of

patrol, almost 10 am.

We drove over, then walked

climbing over snow. ("I heard

an observer was shot." "Someone

shot" "An observer in a car's been shot")

we neared the yellow tape,

("I think the observer might be dead,"

an observer told another)

("I heard they died. Did they die?" "I'm

not sure. I think it was a woman.")

Two crowds. Screaming people, whistling

I blow my whistle. Bodies strain

against the tape. ("Did they die?" I ask an observer. He says that's

what he's heard)

We're getting closer

We, observers, walking towards

the yellow ribbon,

By the way the sun lies, pink-beige

blocks on the street; if I fell

into the nothing that lies in the wake

of the painful sharp line, the limbo would end

But I won't, because nothing has happened.

Nothing has happened yet, you can tell

My phone signal stranded in time zone

stripes, through earth and water

and if I fell

into its echo, the ground would yawn

hell would break loose, but I won't

Because you can tell nothing has happened.

Nothing has happened yet, you can tell

A friend is coming to walk with me round

a lake, eat ice cream and look at the boats

and if something was wrong it would boil

Leaving my corpse red in its wake

But it won't, because nothing has happened.

Nothing has happened yet, you can tell

The prophets would sing, the wind would scream

But the trees are still, and silence stands

like a doctor over a bed, because

Another of these nights:

It's fine she'll probably respond

So many times before, past midnight

She'd write, oh, I slept through it this time

The cat is driving me insane!

If I counted these nights like

beads on a rosary, would anybody's god

come true to help them?

I'm clutching a pint of peanut butter ice cream

Crying and eating spoon after spoon

and reading about fiddlehead ferns

on Russian wikipedia

I sent her a message about cats

Can you imagine. In a hospital

After operation, she checks phone

And sees, Look at these angry cats I drew!

But imagine, too, the countless mornings

She would have had to read

About me sprinkling ice cream with my

Russian tears over her fate

Overt anxiety layered over

Her own sleepless night.

If she counted these nights like

beads on a rosary, would the god she

believes in come down, food in his beard

and spit on the ground? How dare you, мол,

I'm busy, I'm watching sports

I'm eating fiddlehead ice cream

and reading about peanut butter

It's been almost a year--

I remember hanging in a net

of tubes, the trembling ghosts

of a thousand termites

drifting, punctuated vision,

a ripple where my words once walked

in the ER again, the nurse

when I insist insist insist

on getting up to "use the commode"

legs trembling, arms shaking

a salute to the memory of dignity

she tells me -- was this before or after

she said I'm a burden to my friends?

-- she tells me I don't wipe well enough

bitch, you would have me

piss the bed

plastic sheet stuck to my ass.

I hope you're tangled in your mess

and your mother dead

I hope you pass

1. My babushka has called me

enough names to fill up

the pages of Infinite Jest

(all the more an excuse

to never read it))

She called me none on 

New Year’s, and she

Didn’t cry until I told her

That I love her very much

How she must feel, she who

Worse than abuse rates 

Abandonment, lack of attention

The worst thing is to be

Forgotten in a dark time

Impoverished, unseen,

Having sat at the hospital

With scans, I imagine, being told

There’s a mass, how many

Centimeters

And coming home, alone

With her dead husband’s old room

An ocean and closed border away

Away, never to be seen again

Away, away,

Left to die alone.

2. One frame away from 

Tearing out my hair

Spilled benadryl and beer

In my dark, empty apartment

I sobbed about cancer, New Year,

Death encased in politics, the

crushing liminal isolation, I

Felt ground down, in pieces, floating

The ends of sentences dropped

The beginnings lost in the mists

Of time and space (the two

tyrants to take down, as I

have told you)

But when midnight struck, you

were on the other end

Holding up the line until

My words were parallel

In quiet, meticulous, small patterned

Sentences I followed you

Until at last the world grew

Quiet, and breathed out as

we stepped through the

Open doorway of the year

Makes trash into treasure, imbues

with great, painful, nostalgic meaning:

Glossy, thin magazines

Full of gardening tips and tricks

Advice on best sauerkraut, some

Alleged babushka’s definitive

Pickled tomato recipe,

the spreads of news gossip

Kristina Orbakaite did what?

Did you know they found

de Exupery’s plane?

Did you know

We’re all infected with worms?

Just take these 5 easy steps!

Shower with nettle tea!

Sudoku books, half filled out,

Crosswords, last touched in

2007,

A piece of curtain, sun-faded,

Flowered handkerchiefs,

candy wrappers,

a plastic shopping bag,

a stamp—

Save them, save them all

Precious.

So many hours I’ve sat

Slowly pirating some

early 2000s movie

Wanted to press my nose

Against the screen:

Look! A yellow-bricked building, a

Moscow street, a tired cashier

In a Pyatyorochka,

The cadence of their speech

I could cry, or maybe go to sleep

Listening.

Look! The mysterious murder

Happened at a dacha

And the curtains are a familiar lace, 

The cool background greenery

Shatters my heart and I

Sweep it up and steep it in

My broken teapot, look!

It came across the ocean

It’s here now, here,

how much better it must be

for you with her. do you

look at her eyelashes as she sleeps?

do these errant lashes

lay under my pillow?

ready to climb like spiders

over my prone body in your arms

nestle under your fingers, always close

between my skin and yours.

I wish I could move on. How much

better would it be for me

to lay with ---

who?

I let the question hang

and you keep rolling into the

divot of the answer next to me.

One day, it won't be you

I swear

One day, one day, I will long for ---

wrap myself in a discarded longsleeve

to breathe in the smell of ---

fill my home with ---

I let the statement hang

I await this stranger

and hold my copy of

the keys to your apartment

face towards mine, hands embraced 

and said he loves me, that 

i will always have a home 

in his chest, i know 

your black stubble, the

bend of your neck, you in

lemon yellow and pink, how you

hold your hands, your

laugh (that specific one

through half closed lips that

has entered my lexicon)

and, too, your

arms crossed across your 

chest, shoulders caved in

your everyday gray 

dread, trudging through the

narrative of your life 

as you stare at the screen, lower 

lip that I touch gently with 

my fingers 

expressive and 

vulnerable 

I know you, see you plummeting

Through space, floating

In empty rooms full of

People caught in the rush of life 

I wish I could hold you 

in my hands like a small creature 

Extraordinary as

you are, folded arms, stubble 

downturned eyes and all 

Let you see

how every line of your speech and 

body demands 

gentleness 

delicate as any living thing 

I walked miles of Powderhorn

my wishes singlehandedly

sustaining the entire

dandelion population

my chest full of their

clocks ticking in time

to my heart, soft fluttering

beat beat beats

Wouldn't it be sweet

if i could hold myself

as gently as you did

but with what you

could not offer?

i wish for peace without

the touch, love without

the kiss, i wish to miss

the night for the morning

that it brought

and to smell the lilacs

with no thought

but of how beautiful it is

for all that and because

It’s time to go to bed

The party’s over.

The laughter, the guests that

Have been staying overnight

Since last October

They’ve overwintered

And now that spring is here

Their smiles are haggard.

It’s been a year

Since my last awakening

And I have gotten accustomed to

The taste of old champagne

I’ve made it a hobby

To brew and bottle up pain

And age it in half-truths—

The terroir!

The social niceties are broken

And as we crawl into next summer

I’m left alone with spent

Mascara, wings askew

And lies half-spoken

To myself in drunken stupors.

It’s a relief to see

The shattered dishes

The vomit, the faces of my visitors

Ugly with exhaustion, frayed

I can’t sweep them away, I can’t yet

Be free of them, but

Perhaps the end’s in sight.

I sit alone with myself

Deep into the night

And look at the china

Dust at my feet. I’m not bleeding

I’m not out on the street

But I’m too tired

To face the mess

And go to sleep.

I just keep thinking,

Get up, clean up, get it together--

It’s time to go to bed,

I visit a home sometimes

I bring my toothbrush

Leave my hairpins everywhere

I feel the ephemeral touch

Of skin, gold against

My lips on a sunday

morning

For a night at a time, I grasp this

Shelter like a blanket.

I am a visitor, a guest

And now I stand at the 

Threshold, looking out

The night embraces me

I’m naked, shivering

like an aspen tree

In these first few

Days of spring

The door open behind me

I wait

For the palm of the night sky

to cradle me

Small in this world

I wait to be enrobed

In love and meaning

Can it be out there somewhere

In the wind? Can the fresh 

New green leaves

Pick apart my skin

Grow into me, make me

Finally whole?

Please

(a prayer of sorts)

Erode me

I await patiently

I went to a tea party

On February 24th, 2024.

We drank tea. I was asked

How I am, and I said, upset.

Of course, that's much too

heavy a topic. What do you think

The first person to create bread

Was like? Someone said.

Tea doesn't agree with me,

one person told us, but

I took some Xanax.

We laughed.

I limped into a joke, too, I

don't remember what.

I drank tea with Americans, and

When I said, Navalny's dead

One of them said, oh

I think I've heard of him.

We drank the tea. I tried to be

Good company. The green

tablecloth, pristine above

Fell in soft folds into the

Blood that my shoes tracked in.

Behind only me, the future of thousands

Lay in dust. Somewhere, someone

That could arrest me at the border

Was laying awake in bed. What

Could they possibly be thinking?

We drank tea.

If I could gather into my hands

Make visible the crushed

Country that I'm from, would

They believe me? Would they at least

Look at it and say,

Let's get you

Stop stop let me fix it—

Everything a nagging itch

My bra strap, sweater seam

Socks misaligned

Rubbing the wrong way

The way I left off my last

Conversation, the sharp

Crease of it sits off-kilter

In my brain

The things I’ve left undone

Like one short chair leg, a creak,

Drip drip dripping of the tap

Here’s the anatomy: my head

Feels full of gray noise, my

Throat hurts, my chest

Constricted in a vise grip

My belly pell mell

But my tongue wants

Cake and butter, my hips

Want abruptly to be grabbed

I could call a friend, but

I would merely unravel

Or he would look at me

With hungry hands undo me

I could feel so good, I can

Almost taste it — bright and

sweet and savory — but I am 

Never full, and then—

then he would leave me after

With my bra strap, my

Sweater seam

My neverending mental

Itch itch itch itch

God! If I could turn my head

Inside out for a second

With pleasure I would drag

The sharp uneven blades

Of my bitten nails across it

I just want to scratch it, fix it

I just want the grooves to fit together

There— look—

My mind so neat, like

An ikea dresser, all dowels

Put, screws hidden

I didn't cry today. didn't

miss you, though

I missed the touch

Of fingertips on my cheek, full of

More than desire.

The closest thing to love

I have is a man who

Strokes my face because

I told him that I like it.

I am in love with no one

And laying by myself

I feel the empty space

That could hold another person

Close like a hand.

I like getting off

I like my friends

I like black tea in the mornings

I go to class. I make my plans

I don't panic at night

as much

Anymore.

The closest thing to love

I have is absence, the constancy of

Loss. It feels alright

I guess. I loosen my hold

I watch it fading

The blank expanse

Perfect for a valentine

I got home from the party

Sans coat and car, how

Do you lose those

Overnight at 32? I

ask you. What a mess.

I got home at 3 am, dressed

In other people's last moment pity

I felt all the more naked for it

Underneath

I sat on the balcony, smoking

Cigarettes I did not buy

Look what the cat dragged in

Raised by wolves, they told me

I would be ashamed if I knew how

If I knew of what, I'm trying

But every time I do, the shame

Swamps me, was it

Supposed to make me

More human, like the rest of you?

Coatless carless 32

Crying on the phone, lamenting

To a friend that has to

Go to work only in an hour

I wish I didn't feel so naked

Felt safe crushing the parasite within me

It's coatless and carless, too, you know

But I keep on feeling sorry

For its hapless nudity

And I give it tea and cigarettes

Here. Sit down. We'll call

A friend, he'll help you

Find your car.

What can I wrap around myself

When my own arms are

Insubstantial, shield nothing, don't

Mean a thing to me?

Anyway, they're

Hardly insulated, no help at all

We sit in the foam, maps of

biofilm imprinting on our shoulders

bacterial cities complete with infrastructure

I try to speak but every time

The men laugh and start again on

Another story

and cut up my sentences

Into unintelligible bite-sized pieces

The other woman meets my eyes 

sits close and says, god

I’m so glad you’re here, 

You understand—

Men! (she shakes her head)

I’m hooking up with

The richest one I’ve ever met—

She talks in a low, confidential tone.

I’m thinking about how

My face must be the same

As any woman in a public bathroom

Meeting eyes in the mirror over

A new layer of lipstick

(Girl, I know! You look so good!)

How I want a cigarette and that

I have a pretty good book

On my bed at home.

Later, in my own bathroom

I’ll wonder if I said a single thing

That could be termed my own that evening

And look at the newborn, scaly