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Antonina

Sara Talpos 


Go back to the cottage in Kiev
with its peasant stove and earthen floor,
its handful of chickens, rose bushes, apple tree.
	
It is 1928, and I am learning to write my name.  
"A" is an elegant letter.       
 
When I tell you about my life,  
it is still possible to tell you about myself. 
  
 
~ 


There is no getting around the Cheka. 

They wore black boots.  

The buttons on their jackets scattered
the light.
   
They carried rifles, shouted
in Russian.  I was old enough 

to know what they wanted, to refuse.

When this happened, they 
created the Famine.

But you haven't heard 


~  


of the Famine?  What goes missing 

from textbooks:  that the Soviets robbed us
of our grain, boarded up 

our train stations.  The Cheka 
killed my father, my brother 
joined the collective, even this 

wasn't enough.  We stole rotten 
potatoes, put them in a pot,

pumped water until the starch rose 
to the surface.  We lived on 
the foam, just that.

You could, too.


~


I wasn't strong.  I did not hope.  

I remember my brother 
coming home from the fields 
with something in his hands--a dead 

sparrow for me, a little 
piece of luck.
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