smoke and ice

Photo by Oksana Vasilieva on Unsplash

A white tree in a California winter
scarred with graffiti
looks like a birch in the taiga
which (I learned last year) is the part of Russia
where no one can live, or no one wants to

Look, I know nothing about Russia,
but I'm learning
how official stories are farcical 
but enforced by the state's jagged metal teeth
and people vanish in the snow

Yesterday I learned
the man who shaves goat meat
off a vertical spit
on the busiest corner in my neighborhood
was taken by ICE

His absence is the absence of smoke
while I wait at a red light
(Look, I know nothing)
and, for his family, a vertical spit
piercing their hearts

Masha from Pussy Riot 
charts a path through the snow
for those of us who are learning:
When they say you can't assemble
send one activist at a time

When you're locked up with your lover
fuck her while you can

Masha lives in Iceland now
because bodies are not infinite
but her love for the people of Russia
is a steady global hiss
like a geothermal pool

I just want to write about trees
but there are teeth in my stomach,
grinding, reminding me what is finite
I'm trying to leave my mark
a knife on bark

while somehow remaining
as ghostly as smoke;
Look, I know I can't have it both ways