Questions for Vera

What do you keep in that smallest box?

It’s where I’ve locked away my land,

black bread, cabbages and hens,

dots of dandelions in swathes of grass

around our dacha, my medals,

the Soviet flag, a samovar and glasses,

summer, plunging in cold rivers, my mother.

And in the next?

Here, I’ve wrapped my losses, the siege

of Stalingrad, the hush of black marias,

like ravens in the snow, hungry cries

of children, empty shelves and secrets,

the camp that took away my lover,

all the disappeared, the ice and lies and blood.

This is the last—the biggest—all six sides

opaque, letting in and out the light—metal

 slightly warped, hinge becoming worn—

it’s full of the endless days of now,

the television’s drone, my tongue that’s useless

in this life so far from home, the spent century,

my untouched aging self, the son who’ll never grow …

I slot the other boxes in it, like a matryoshka doll

but, still, it’s empty, look. 

What do you want to know?