Breakfast
Outside the French doors of our
kitchen men on scaffolding replace
the grey we lived with for
years with brilliant yellow
paint. The last time they
painted our building I was pregnant with
your father. All I could eat was
salted fish
my Babushka says
as she stirs the kasha and I
beat the eggs, my husband asleep
in the other room—up
all night drinking with friends—
no surprises there. If
my father were here
he’d be drinking with
them, real man that he
was. Babushka lights
candles at the church across
the street with the hope that
my husband will change his
life, and I cook the eggs
his favorite way in any
case… The other day after
church Babushka lost the way
home and later told me
how nothing had seemed particularly
familiar. I add garlic to
the eggs and start to fry
them. Between cigarette drags,
one of the painters hums
a melody I haven’t heard
for years. When I was
small did my father sing
this? I would ask
Babushka, but could she
remember? Through smoke clouds, the man looks
in and smiles as I
cook the eggs. He continues
singing then just breathes
in as if he could
catch the scent of
garlic wafting through the windowglass.
Go to the shore of Lake Baikal.
Put your feet in its icy water to add ten years to your life.
Take those years and go on a journey.
Keep a notebook as you go.
After ten years throw the notebook away.
Write a poem.
Then another.
Throw them away.
Return to Baikal.
Fell a tree.
Hollow it out to make a boat.
Know that Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth.
Forget that depth as you row across.
Take your boat ashore and stand it upright then push it in the sand.
In a thousand years it will grow new leaves.
Plunge into the lake’s frigid depth to add a thousand years to your life.
Behold those leaves for yourself.
Chop the tree down.
Make paper.
Write a book.
This time, don’t throw the book away.
This time, bring it to Bayir.
He, an infinitely patient monk,
will still be waiting a thousand years from now
as he feeds the ram
who usually sleeps in the tall steppe grass
outside the datsan gate.
Resa Alboher, an editor of St. Petersburg Review, is working on a collection of poetry and a novel. Her poems have appeared in The Edison Review and The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices from The Frost Place, Volume 2.