|
 Dominika Wrozynski teaches
Creative Writing at Florida State University and is the Poetry
Editor for Appalachee Review. Her latest work has appeared in
Crab Orchard Review and is forthcoming in Slipstream and Spoon
River Review.
Inadequate Representations
Poland, 1984
They wait for one pound
of coffee, in a line that moves
like an ancient animal. Babcia
clutches ration coupons-flimsy
potential for the coffee smell
that permeates the pantry,
the beans hard, glossy marbles
under her fingers-Dziadek's
eyes-closed smile as he sips, rolls
the blackness in his mouth.
Mama Makes Pierogi
1.
When power lines drag heavy clouds,
cold comes and Mama makes pierogi,
rolls out dough with an old beer
bottle, tries not to think
about when she was a Mrs.
She slices dough with a tailor's
precision. Scraps fall like cloth
shards, weightless until they thunk
onto the cutting board, remind her
she creates dinner for two, not three.
Her daughter sneaks around the kitchen door.
Fingers, floured hummingbirds, trap
meat and cabbage, pinch pinch pinch
the pockets closed. She stands for hours
on kitchen tiles, compounds her vertebrae
into question marks. Her daughter,
underfoot, receives a dusting of flour.
Bubbles burst the water, now hot
in the steel pot, and Mama drops
in pierogi, steams up the windows.
Her daughter draws tulips
upon each pane, waits for winter to pass.
2.
The daughter, not yet a mother,
makes gummy pierogi that fall
apart in roiling stew pots, sends
transparent cabbage and gray meat
floating to the top. Fingers closer
in grace to penguins than hummingbirds
crash-land into eddies of familiar history.
Trial By Fire
for my mother
Lorca says duende burns the blood like powdered glass
but I can only think of how you drowned
in dark water, after the fire didn't burn you or your brother's
paintings, your silhouette seared onto the window
frame. You cannot sleep nights, you tell me, fear the flames'
lick of your hair. And you don't fear much.
This is nothing after communist Poland. All you wanted
was to never disappear down the side door
to an interrogation cellar. But there is something, after all,
about the end punctuation of a burned house.
That dark water forces you to give all of your candles to
Goodwill,
only allows for three hours of sleep at night.
And when the glass of milk, brandy, or the walk before bed all
fail,
I will string St. Barbara medallions around
your bed, hide them behind the vanity, under the cat's collar. I
want
a lifetime guarantee from the nun
in the cathedral gift shop that this is the best saint for the
job, the one
with the direct line upstairs.
I will go to Goodwill and get your candles back.
My Mother Receives Her Citizenship
Yes, I will bear arms in defense
of my country-my mother, fifty-two,
five-foot-two, has never held a gun.
Her eyes flash shell shock when police pepper
protestors downtown remind her
of communist Poland, where guns performed
interrogations in concrete cells.
Citizenship waned through bruised craniums
and busted ribs. Now it is glorious,
desired. My mother is ready
to bear arms with one arm, the other was shot away
by a German soldier during World War II.
Another unwanted Polka, an impostor
in the country of his birth. Today
she pledges allegiance to a foreign flag,
says yes to impossible questions.
The Things We Take This Night: Or What You Need To Escape
From A
Communist Country
The night is hoot owls, wind-whistled flue, babies bundled in
burlap.
-Judy Jordan
This night is a single marigold backpack, and a gray faux-fur
coat, and a doll
that says Mama when you flip her over, a doll that could cost us
everything.
And this night is also three suitcases, one for each of us, the
three bears, but no Goldilocks to try things out first, only
friends who stay up all night and pray
rosary upon rosary, wrapping us in bandages of Hail Marys and
Our Fathers,
in an invisibility cloak of luck and Polish superstition. This
night is English
dictionaries wedged in the bottom of one suitcase, and American
dollars stuffed
into the bottom of socks, and three changes of clothes each, and
no children's books.
The single children's book will come later, when we are on a
three-day Christmas
cruise to Germany. It's the most expensive thing in the gift
shop, but we buy it
anyway, spend the dollars. It's a good investment-the child
teaches herself to read
and the mother is less angry about the white tights, they fall
upon the boardwalk.
This night is always what stays: bags slashed open, other
fathers stalled
in political purgatory, one girl's jumper missing in the
school's morning roll call.
This night is finally the customs agent who tells us to go
through, even though
the doll is still hollow, still says Mama, and we are clearly
never coming back.
|
