the old Georgian woman flees Gori, from the Russians: 8-11-08

I heard it.
Tied my babushka around my face
and opened my sturdiest bag. I placed within
my afghan from my mother, and my silver
watch my papa gave me; Ana’s poems—
a sheaf pocked by my thumbs, I read so often
to ease a shut-up winter’s night without her.
And my good lace, that chaste cotton snowdrop
that bloomed in my night-dark hair my wedding day
before I lost it in our private riot that night.
Now only memories. His picture all
that I have left from him—that, and a womb
worn out, from so many tries to hang upon
the wall, and so many slips away in blood.

So much blood.
He kissed me while the bleeding ran—
my wounds from those lost loved ones—and again
when after watching our little snowdrop bloom
planted in our own garden—when Ana died.
How her blood ran over my apron, seeped
down into my undergarments, trickled
hot over my thighs and stuck behind my knees.
She died in my arms, and Mikhail held us both.
He held me—then he went, and left me here
also, with lips like tenderly well-worn pages
from all his kisses; and with tears.

He left me
With his photo: He smiled wide that day.
We all smiled wide—We’d heard a speech that day
to tear the Wall down—How we wanted to shout
but kept it to ourselves, whispered about it
giggling over beer and candlelight. And then
Dmitri my best friend’s brother drew out his camera,
his secret, for special occasions. This was one.
We all posed—individually—Dmitri
was feeling extravagant, which he rarely feels—
and so I have the picture, a still of hope.
We got them developed right around the time
The Wall
Came down.

I heard—sirens, the bombs:

So much blood.
I tucked the picture in my bag
and whistled to Alexei, the stray pup
I’ve fed for company. We shut the shed
and hobbled across the city:
To the woods.
Everyone else was running—The houses were running
the people were running, the world was running, the blood—

(originally published in the 2009 edition of Rubbertop Review, University of Akron’s literary magazine)