Listening To Russian Poetry
The odor of turnips,
of seasoned cabbage water - borscht
flushed through musing kidneys.
Listening to Zhukovsky, Vysotsky, Tyutchev,
not comprehending a word of it.
Working my way backward
through an alphabet that echoes
proto-Slavic roots and chugs.
Muses that are a gloved slap of love,
an aching tooth,
a fondness for black-ice
words that gnaw wet socks and fingertips.
Suspicions wriggle like long dead Popes –
the smell of tobacco and damp sheets.
A dusting of earth shaken from chilled rhizomes.
Words simmer like sleeping Cossacks.
Whiffs of green water, grain, and potato,
the anguish of bruised beets.
A poetry that peels onion,
a crop used
in the pickling of cucumbers,
and other forever preserved romances.
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