Noril'sk
Noril’sk
it is 25 April and snowing in Noril’sk :
is that past your past, is that something lost?
Нет, не забываешь ты о нем.
I am also sure, when we wonder we are fantasy :
all of memory is a book while fancy is a film, a telescope.
fantasy is looking up, it is just looking up
. . .
to these stars, yes these, and there I spy a plane -
the night flight to Moscow out of Alykel probably
because, see, these things never change. delays
yes, but no to change : a delay is not change a
delay is the antithesis of change, the bull not
moved but tossing his head at the fence, glaring.
it is 25 April and snowing, just light and soft.
there will be wells of water all around the town
and vast lakes by the smelter where heat turned
quiet ice into silent water : steam makes the third
of this unique trinity.
it is 25 April and snowing ; we import sneakers
we import pineapples, and we hold geology
in our collective hands like a globe of twine.
this is a city of nights, a city of right before
noon when pots steam like model smelters
for dolls in some odd diorama. (why do you
listen to this music? why do you want to
forget?)
. . .
A city no one wanted, a city that wanted
no one?
not all places are story-book places, no
some are very real places, and they are
the fat child, the slow horse, they are
the grubby hounds in the parking lot
yet real, very real. you don’t forget . . .
Нет, не забываешь ты о нем.