First the elaborate letters, then their sounds,
the fat, embarrassed tongue feeling its way,
and then the words, heavy with consonants,
tied uselessly together for something to say
to him that meets me mornings in the mirror,
both of us dour, both of us Muscovites:
I want to buy four refrigerators.
Learning the long winter, the snow-blue lights.
Then getting used to leaving small words out:
My mother old; I go work, good-bye.
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