for Zoya (b. 1926)
The past is an undigested meal. Small things
trap us, she says. How a girl can pop out
to search for bread and be gone for twelve years.
That washing dead bodies becomes routine.
Dreams come thicker now, like smoke
from the transport train to Nazi Germany –
rib-cage to rib-cage with fellow Russians,
pissing and shitting together.
She indulges in petits fours, talks Putin, Ukraine –
her politics a jumble of loyalties. In her head
she walks with Palestinians over bomb craters,
a ghosthood imposed by the dead
who won’t lie still. Like Papa, missing in the Gulag,
appearing the night she gave birth to her son:
Zoyechka, be clear what you want, then do it.
Later, she learnt they shot him the day of her dream.
Every morning she takes ten lengths
of the pool with one breast missing. Advises
against mirrors. Tells me to repeat each day
‘I am beautiful, I love myself’.
I won’t die yet. Why should I?
Tonight she’ll wear pearls for the Royal Ballet
on Screen. For now I help her order new curtains.
Too bloody expensive, but they’ll last.
