Siberian Transit
1 Minute Read Time
Freight cars, barely any stops. Rising
stench. Some say,
We’ll get shot in the woods.
Others say, They’ll waste us away
building dams, roads.
Nobody knows.
It’s all happening
now & now—a shard
of my mother’s soul
throbbing inside my throat.
As she speaks, she hands me a shot glass,
the convex meniscus of moonshine
shuddering with the train’s
clickety-clack.
Me, I say, I too got a dowry:
strangers with kids
lined up by the track. Maybe
they’re getting extra rations
for the winter, I think
in my mother’s place. Never looking them
in the eye, I feign—and don’t feign—
indifference.
We drink until it gets light outside
and the trees in the window frame read
like lines
from a poem in a language
waiting to be revived.
In the narrow corridor, I squeeze
past men in uniforms, brush shoulders
with refugees, clutching at
passport & cash stuffed inside
my pants, as a Rom with a soiled sack
gives me a sidelong glance.
What are we to each other but a chance
at a rhyme jingles a line
in my ear, as I lean over the toilet
throwing up.
Read more from Issue 19.1.
