1. The Stalin Years
Mandelstam died in transit. Those who made it
did hard labor—
felling stands of pine,
silver and white birch, long logs encased
in white, peeling bark.
They clawed bark, unfurling it to the cambium
on through into the phloem, shoveled the soft,
moist red into their mouths.
They swallowed fistfuls of toadstools, milk-
caps, and brittlegills, tore off clumps of moss.
If caught, they were shot.
Once spring came sap began to rise—
birches wept in Siberia.
2. Winter 1995
Giddy foreign investors hopped on the run-down
Tupolev at Domodedovo to get to the conference
in Novosibirsk. It was only a short haul.
The flight crew set out folding chairs in the aisles,
squirted disinfectant into the air to mask the aroma
of sausage.
When we landed, like Emma Peel from The Avengers,
I was escorted to a bulletproof car. A corporate
lawyer on a rainmaking mission, I was hunting for naïve
businessmen out to make a buck in the ex-
Soviet Union. I lavished them with vodka and caviar,
assuring them that the Mafiosi wouldn’t taint their deals.
Speaking at the conference I touted capitalism,
a promise of the Wild West. After the last ceremonial meal,
I went to bed in my coat, baseball bat by my side,
chair wedged at the door.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There, silver birch has knotty bark, white with black
streaks, smells of wintergreen. Birch tar is
said to cure stubborn wounds.
In the moonlit night, a blistering wind. Willow warblers
nested, whistling a repetitive, descending dirge.
Snow buntings hid in the grass.
3. Sauna
In the windowless banya at a friend’s dacha near
Moscow, we drank straight vodka. Marina’s aria
from Boris Godunov filtered through a speaker.
I beat myself with bundles of young birch,
swept myself, as with a broom.
To cool, I ran outside, rubbed myself in a snowdrift.
Russians say a person is reborn in the banya.