My doll is more than
a faceless log

I dress it up in a rag
made out of a torn-up flag

I rock it back and forth
cradling it in my arms

I throw it up and kick it
like a soccer ball

Don’t you love your doll?
the others ask

Yes yes
This is how we play


Wards of the state, we’re cared for
by all
and no one

Human-faced
like a Sirin bird
the state throws food down its children’s throats

We’re kept warm
by the shreds of flesh buried beneath
our strong clawed feet

To each according to her
need, from each according to her
talon, declares the slogan

Recently but an egg
I bask in the heat, my feet
dance to a song


I’m a girl whose hand
nobody holds

In a choral circle
I dance alone

I enjoy the benefit
of the Law

submitting my body
to a purpose

Like a holy cloth
with markings of blood

I bear the stains of sainthood
on the outer circle of Love


On weekends we put on aprons
and kersey boots

Holding hands
we march out in rows

We whitewash trees in the spring
rake leaves in the fall

This is how we pay back our country
for what we owe

Overseers examine our work
give us cigarettes as a reward

Digging drainage, collecting garbage
we joke and smoke

Our leaders call it –a subbotnik


One among many
one with all

I dissolve in the form
of the communal body

A creature of many arms
many mouths

I occupy every room
in this hearthless house

A home of no walls
a borderless meadow

Spirit thirsting after
a greater freedom


A foreigner inside me
my tongue

forming words
I do not discern

sonic texture morphing
into crystals

shadows against the palate
roof opening to the sky

I spy
a beyond

silver linings of senses, slivers
of syllables

loose oscillating syntax
wet oily stars

ordered in constellations

On the outside
it sounds like

hissing


Marked in red –
our victories, unmarked –
the defeats

In the empty fields
our heroes remain
like sheaves of wheat

Willingly, we exchange
freedom for peace
arms for bread

All in white
hair in a braid
coiling around her head

Motherland emanates light

Marking out the rhythm
for a song, my throat
clutched by a steely grip
hoarse with the salty soil

whispers Slava Slava


Like a hollow doll
turned inside out
through a punctured hole
 
I dance in a dress of flesh
inner organs exposed
tied to me with a pulsing sash

Shrieking out
I dance
in a pool of blood

Inside me
my outer shell
crumpled up

a wrinkled balloon
waiting for a lung
to blow breath into it