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[vriad_lee]

The Cossacks by Linda Pastan


For Jews, the Cossacks are always coming.
Therefore I think the sun spot on my arm
is melanoma. Therefore I celebrate
New Year's Eve by counting
my annual dead.

My mother, when she was dying,
spoke to her visitors of books
and travel, displaying serenity
as a form of manners, though
I could tell the difference.

But when I watched you planning
for a life you knew
you'd never have, I couldn't explain
your genuine smile in the face
of disaster. Was it denial

laced with acceptance? Or was it
generations of being English--
Brontë's Lucy in Villette
living as if no fire raged
beneath her dun-colored dress.

I want to live the way you did,
preparing for next year's famine with wine
and music as if it were a ten-course banquet.
But listen: those are hoofbeats
on the frosty autumn air.

Comments

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

linda pastan is stupid.

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

why? please elaborate!

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

oh i don't know, i mean now when linda pastan googles her own name in a month or two from now this entry might come up and she will be all "no one calls linda pastan stupid, bitch." see i think ahead.

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

fear not, my journal isn't indexed by google like that

[poemtree.livejournal.com]

okay yes but it was a funny thought.

i'm going to start name-dropping people in my journal.