BELOMORKANAL

By Cecily Jones

Brown University

 

Russia is a country

That does not exist

Where wintry war fabriks

Puff bullets stead of cigarettes

 

Home, your barefoot balcony home

Where Belomor filters Griboedova

You puff a paper white pulya

Seeing as you will never die

Seeing as Russia is a country

That does not exist

 

Bread beer and gum wrappers

Press noses to glass

In a country where kiosks have no give

The bundle of bodies at Leningradsky Vokzal

Sleeps rolled in pigeons red rugs and rags

Moscow is a city that does not awake

 

Let’s stay home in Belomor

You light us up another four am fog

Puff purple ash for a Peter sky