Seven Poems

Homesickness
In Memory of Maria Fadeyeva Enzensberger
Yesterday I found a postcard with your scrawl:
'Darling, we are all horses, how is it
you haven't learned that yet?' And at once
your high-boned, white face rose
beside me like a reproach

as if I had begun to forget the wildness
in the gutturals of your laugh, and
the loneliness of toska po rodine
in the frozen sea of your eyes. But I have not.
You were always my Russia:

the voice of Marina's poetry. We saw you last
in a Moscow of brown streets, puddles, and
people queuing for ice cream: an autumn of anomalies,
...