KGB

KGB

By JCSTREET © 2004

We tried to get arrested because
I figured you pull a five in the Gulag you
--lose a lot of weight, you
--learn a second language, you
--get a book out of it, and
there was no terror in the Gulags by
1988, sure
it was hard time but you got
lots of fresh air

she was an art teacher from New Zealand, working
in London, she
wore a blue coat and a rakish
hat with a beautiful
feather, we
walked up the Moscow River to
Parka Gorkiy and I said

Izvinitye pahzhalsta, babushka . . .
Yest oo vas chai and we sipped
the sweet tea from glasses
in silver containers

we took the train out past
the inner ring
road and the outer ring road, out to where
the cigarettes had names like Kosmos and
Tupolev 154 and
cost only pennies

back in town cigs cost a fortune
at the beriozkaya, we
walked among the snowy gloom of weeping concrete
workers’ highrises and tried to
break the 25 mile limit
and wait
and wait
and wait

for the boys not from brazil but
from the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti
in their little Zhiguli
with the blue light
to putt putt alongside but
Alas!

our errant tails between our legs we hurried
back to some station which was not
the one we had come to we were
hopelessly lost and unable to divine
how to buy a ticket, but
still reckless with adventure we
boarded a long distance train that possibly
was heading for Vlad, or Kras, or worse and
my Berlitz book gave
no comfort in the matter
saying only
“Gdye mozhnya paluchit skladnoye kryesla,” or
“Where can I get a deckchair.”

Kingston Ontario June 15, 2004