Poem du jour

Talking to Myself
by Sue Butler

You are sitting in the shade of lindens, by the dried-up well;
I recognize it all, the un-manned halt, the single track,
steppe grass smouldering sullenly. I still have that plaid jacket,
that rucksack, that coin you have in your pocket: a single rouble
cast in the year I, or should I say we, were born,
given to us as a parting gift, for luck.

A cobbler in Kharkov thought me mad when I paid him
to make a hole in it. He threaded wire through
and soldered a loop just big enough to take the bootlace
he let me have for three cigarettes. He even helped me
tie it round my neck. Some days its power is strong
but it is not to be relied on.

Kissed frogs stay frogs. We catch hepatitis in Pskov. Dare I tell you
we never have a baby? You look up as if you have heard me,
smile at yourself for thinking the unthinkable -no,
at garrulous sparrows bathing in the dust. You will regret
your disregard for clothes, regret cutting your own hair.

At dinner parties you will make people glad
they secured a house and family. At christenings
they will take your silver, but seat you far enough away
not to breathe wanderlust on their child. Not to tell its siblings
of the ten hot hours waited here, then two days
on a hard-class seat; how you noticed wolves and hovering
hawks in a view famous for being oppressive, unchanging.