Olga Moskvina

I am filling the creases on your neck

and your palms, from which sand



once rose, as from the creases of

a sidewalk where a parched wind



wrestles. The unfolding of

your back revels in its grace as though



it were a sickness, or falling

leaves curling around



a current of air. My hands

falling on yours, my hands



on your unfolding back,

especially on your unfolding back, 



become poplar leaves. That I cannot

hide in a crease your smile



makes in your cheek is

my one regret as I let my eyes



shut out the light: unseen,

it will dissolve the gentle weight



of distances. I know how to

stop and start at the brim.

Morning is stark over the contours of two hillocks. The slopes are trapped in slow folds of air bright as the glass of an unused photo frame. The air gathers reflections from the undersides of leaves that look like quieted skin in a room with the curtains drawn. The leaves stick to one another and to the bark of the tree that swoons into the blue space off to the side, following the rules of good composition. There are no clouds and the sun is not pictured. Neither is the procession of women that had just passed through here. They wore hoods and held out cupped hands. Their cupped hands carried nothing. Perhaps a bell tolled in the distance and the echo followed them. That we could never have known. But the women, the women – the creases in their palms were thin smiles.

There are days blurred like the skin

of fruit rotting, when we look into the water

and cannot tell if the dark stripes

shuddering over the surface

are the reflections of street lamps

or just our shadows. Such days

do not have matching nights, unless

they are white nights, but then

each night is crossed out

by the black stroke of a morning

where a dead man lies on a table,

already a stranger, like a

simple object at which a child

peers through a rolled up notebook page,

willing it further and further away.

You wake and press your face

to the plaster, folding your hands

on your lap, your starched sheet,

a prayer passing from your cheek

to the wallpaper. No, you are not

God’s favorite doll. We open and close

our eyes for Him dutifully, but He

only uses us for our ability to forget.



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