“And I quietly abscond past upturned jars on the wooden fence
into the silent rows behind the house.
No-one cares; hidden in cornstalks that haven’t yet sprouted,
I unzip my pants and masturbate into the moonlit muck.”
— M.M., unpublished
The wedding wages on. Girls with jugs of
samohon wind their white hands like snakes,
wave to the boys perched on roofs of houses,
wave to the tree nailed to the highest eaves,
their thin fingers curled like apostrophes around jar handles.
Behind the dancers, the cornfield spreads thick and dense,
cushioning the guests whipping the polka
across the mud—dirt up their ankles, dirt up their legs,
people like violent tops in red and black suspense—
and I quietly abscond past upturned jars on the wooden fence.
This is a place more honest than my past.
I’m going to grow my hair long, my beard longer.
I’m going to change my last name. I’m going to forget my father.
The spoon in my mouth had always been gold,
that colour of palm-wet money, wicked and fake.
And the bride is held in embroidered arms of a new spouse,
pale and tall, ugly in her raw village joy.
So I walk through the sawdust on the ground—
me, a taut string, a glossy key, this foreign louse—
into the silent rows behind the house.
I watched the wedding from the beginning—
the groom washing his mother-in-law’s feet,
giving her new boots, lacing them with chapped fingers,
the sawdust sown to absorb mud, makeshift confetti
catching on eyelashes, on lace-like hair.
The guests cawed. The guests shouted.
And I left because I began to get hard, because I
thought of the groom fucking the bride later on,
the way he held the back of her neck. The way she pouted.
No one cares; hidden in cornstalks that haven’t yet sprouted,
I stand still and silent,
sorochka heavy with sweat.
Her hair was light. Her hair was dark. I don’t remember.
She was not ugly like the bride. She was quiet under my mouth,
eyes noiseless when I switched off the light above us.
I remember her smell. I remember her throat making
the sounds of all the creaking strings being struck—
The wedding is quieter from farther away.
I can breathe. I can taste my own salt in the air.
I stretch, a down-bow, become unstuck,
unzip my pants, masturbate into the moonlit muck.
