--- A N Y S S A   K I M

 

“Dushinka” was her daughter,
the dear one she 
propagated through a language of 
firsts and onlys
 
and I was “Tovarish” 
 
“What does that mean?”
 
“Bitter radish” they’d reply, both she and Baba
laughing, inhaling hard 
through dank smoke cylinders, steam
erupting from boiling consommé beneath
pale sheaths of flesh, slowly turning cold 
to vodka, pulsing through borscht blood
 
Birthday cards every year 
left on the table “With love” 
beneath foreign subtitles: 
“To my daughter”
“To my granddaughter”
“To my niece”
 
a mysterious day, like a dumb hand, 
scribbles out misappropriated sentiments
and names meant for the birth child
 
“Tovarish!  Why did you hide the card?”
 
I slip a side-glance to the Korean calendar
given by the grocers down the block
its empty dozen egg months hung
on pages of broken shells, yearning anew
through fiction of mornings, afternoons, 
and the final hard truth of nights