Russian Chocolates
I never knew I had patriotism until I moved to Russia.
Now I fight the urge to justify all the things I criticized back home.
Why can’t you camp wherever you want to in America?
a fellow instructor in Ulan-Ude asks.
The apartment building staircase reeks of urine.
Here communal space is not valued.
Cigarette butts mound in the lobby.
Piles of dirty snow line the street.
Our faces collapse as we wait to be rescued by the bell.
So many topics we cannot understand about one another:
how I wanted my children to go away for university,
how she will decide her children’s careers.
My Siberian colleagues like it when I recite
all I love about Russia, but suspicious too.
They perceive life in America is easier.
What is your background?
Living in Russia, I am asked this question often.
In America, a code for
You don’t really belong here. This is not your home.
Here men from the Caucuses are yanked from the metro
escalator by police demanding their papers.
Back home men and women of color are pulled over while driving.
On a tram the other day a young man yelled at my landlady to
go back to Israel, a country she has never been to.
I used to think that would never happen in America,
but that was then.
On a break between classes, someone has set out a plate
of cookies and Russian chocolates,
wrapped in bright foil with folk art,
put on the kettle on for tea.
This ritual so important, civilizing.
* * * * *
In Siberia, I Watch My Host
Ilya sits at the kitchen table,
open bottle of beer before him,
pours half a glass, dips a finger in,
taps it on the tabletop.
For the house spirits, Marina
explains. To appease
or nourish, I am not sure,
nor what role the ancestors play.
In the Irkutsk Historical Museum,
a 19th c. shaman’s robe hangs
with strips of metal and a few keys
to summon the spirits
as protection or to banish evil ones.
I think of our own Passovers,
finger dipping in the wine and tapping.
Blood. Vermin. Locusts.
The power. The fear.
* * * * *
What Is It Like?
What is it like to be born into the wrong body?
To live decades in the wrong city?
To be married to the wrong man?
Once I was instructed to dress warmly for a pilgrimage
The train was crowded and too hot
weekend riders lugging bags heavy
with potted tomatoes and cucumbers nurtured on city windowsills all winter
on their way to dachas with the promise of spring
We picked our way on a snowbound path
a faint suggestion of green underneath
The birches silent
I was soon to leave this country
Late night calls after he returned to his apartment from evening concerts
or preparing students for international competitions
We both knew the daily exchange would vanish
We stopped on a pair of rocks stretched our legs
looked at one another too much to say