Of Water
Let’s not pretend where I went
I went by accident: I looked, pulled
a pale stone from my mouth
and cast it. I watched the crows
swarm orange dusk, held
time’s silty kite string.
Yanka Kupala Street
Family of metalsmiths who roofed
this new city: I looked for our name
in the cemetery. Found great-grandmother in lime
next to a wasp nest. Envelope full of matte faces
and a weathered map: I laid stones
all over. Laid them in doubles
for the years none were laid. In the cemetery: found
great-grandmother in lime next to
a wasp nest. Slaughter marker across from McDonald’s.
DoubleTree near the mass grave. Placed stones
in doubles for the years
none were laid. At the river’s edge, a flock of geese
cleaned their summer-plumped bodies. Slaughter marker
across from McDonald’s and DoubleTree
near the mass grave. Green tufting
out of the bonerock, every city grown from
the dead. At the river’s edge, a flock
of geese cleaned their summer-plumped bodies.
All that ocean and back to the same cutting waters.
Green tufting out of the bonerock, air filled
with the dead. Sunlight traces the fish-scaled roof
of the circus. The family circus, as we claimed. All that ocean
and back to the same cutting waters. Family
of metalsmiths who roofed this new city: I looked for our name.
Author’s Note: The Belarusian State Circus was completed in 1958. A stone structure in the center of Minsk, the foreman for the original tin roof was my grandfather’s uncle. The circus stands at the corner of Yanka Kupala Street and Independence Avenue. If you are ever in Minsk, my cousin will take you and show you.
Lutheran Square
Minsk, Belarus
A little girl with my name throws grass
into the hollow. From the lapis bench,
I watch her. Only a plaque now
for the Lutheran church, German
cemetery. The aura is still bad, many
husbands died early. After the war,
the locals couldn’t stand it: mourners visiting
with hard double consonants. My mother
one of the neighbor kids, climbing
into crypts, hiding behind coffins.
Author’s Note: During a 2016 expansion of Karl Liebknecht Street in Minsk, workers unearthed bones from the city’s former Lutheran Cemetery. It was the first time the old cemetery had been disturbed since the headstones were removed in the 1970s. The italicized phrase in this poem comes from an article by Irina Bordovskaya in Komsomolskaya Pravda, a news outlet whose Belarusian subsidiary was blocked online on September 29, 2021 by the authoritarian regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko. The print edition was banned in 2020.