Elaine M. Starkman
(USA)
At a Russian Circus,
Sochi, on the Black Sea, 1990
I want to be an aerialist, not a ballerina with the Bolshoi
or the Kirov or a small two-bit troupe dancing for
tourists, she thought, as she sat in the Russian Circus
in a small town on the Black Sea;
I’ll hang by my teeth from a rope, wear a gaudy costume,
every muscle of my body, taut, every nerve controlled.
I’ll twirl and spring into the handsome hairy arms of Mitya—
half Georgian, half Jew, each half still hating the other—
I’ll escape to the West—now that it’s made easy—
Paris, New York! I want to feel air rush under
my armpits and between my legs as I listen to our
pretty children below,
girls with chiffon bows, boys with short tight pants,
dripping marozhenya* on their mamma’s big thighs,
hanging onto her, squeezing her fleshy hands.
I’ll fly higher than Chagall rooftops, pinwheel above
holes of toilets where a woman can’t pee—she can’t
wear slacks, she’s must bring her own napkins—
twirl above birch and chestnut of every rotten palace
and museum, above all war monuments,
above embalmed czars, black catacombs, white nights
that never end. I’ll know the name of Peter the Wise,
it’s second nature for me to know Peter the Great, Ivan
the Terrible, and the mass murderers of the Ukraine.
I’ll know every river, metro stop, every block of concrete
twist of history in our vast miserable Motherland.
I’ll know Gorbachev and the rest of leaders,
may they be blotted from memory!
I want decent meals without waiting hours to buy
food. I want comfort clothes, like that English
teacher with her thin-framed glasses sitting down
there in safety, looking at me up here.
I’ll run around with a fast Russian crowd, drink
kvass and vodka, eat kasha and caviar, know how to say
more than up/down, in/out, close/open in other tongues.
I’ll feed tigers from my purse full of meat and
wrap the baby around my shoulders like a coat.
I’ll wear two-colored hair, a hard face of rouge
and live in a room so small that it makes swing,
swing high as the sky,
dangle my ankle in the air. I’ll tickle new millionaires
under their fat chins, know where this country’s going,
where I’m going, forget history, let it be known
in the west; that’s where I’m headed—
the West, the West! That’s what keeps my act alive.
At three in the morning, I’ll fall into bed with Mitya.
ignoring his snoring My dreams sound like
Babushka’s sweet songs until Mitya sneaks out
to black market—better than ever…. When
I wake he’s gone. I’ll put on thin-framed glasses,
dress myself in a dress of good western cut and file
out the front door of this ransacked hotel where
the teacher from America thinks
it’s art that makes me dive and leap.
*marozhenya = ice cream
In Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
The day was the jewel
that young visitors expect,
yet for those of us who live here
we know our swift weather changes.
For now the air was desirable
with a clean and bright breeze
the park, uncrowded.
What more could anyone want.
We got lost driving here,
coming from the hospital
and not our home. I should have driven
through the city for practice
since my accident, but my husband
insisted on driving.
At last we walked along the park
studying historical figures
who had settled here in earlier times.
When we sat on a bench,
he took my hand and kissed it.
I teared up, the two of us not
so young and sometimes distant.
Then we walked some more
eyeing a young black girl alone
on a bench. She had a sweet shy smile
and softly asked if we might give her
a dollar.
We did, but when we saw
she had no hands, I wished
we’d given her more, that
we had talked longer and told
her where she might find help,
find work for herself.
On the freeway home, I thought of course
we should have taken her home
and let her sleep in one of the
bedrooms of our long-gone children,
but I hadn’t spoken out,
my only regret of the whole day.
October, 8, 2013
Zen Ice Cream, 1989
I’m glad you told me
How odd
It is
To first lick the vanilla,
Then the chocolate
Separately
Not swirling
The two together
On my tongue.
Since then I’ve learned
To admire crusts
Of breads
Rinds of melons
And to suck
The juice of plums
Praising their pits
Before I spit them
Out….
Appears in Hong Kong Literary Journal, 2013
After/words: In the Garden of Eden
Now our bodies soften
his of clay, mine of bone
Storm and sun
darkness and light
no longer tell us
what they mean
or where to travel
Is an eye still not a hand
is a foot still not pleasure
In our First World
we had their Garden,
but here there are too many truths,
and we cannot flee
the Flood
Appears in Ginosko Literary Journal, #3,
Traveling Among Men, June, 2012
They walk the path,
each by himself at this
early hour, this perfect day:
First, Hemingway—
shirt off to the world
chest tanned. The scowl
remains on his face says:
Grace Under Pressure
Timidly, I whisper, “Hi.”
He nods his head, snarls,
and looks away.
Next Einstein, shabbily dressed,
semi-jogging with a small strange gait.
His long white hair nearly
touches the edge of his vest.
We smile; he waves his left hand,
I, my right, thinking of one of his quotes:
Women marry men hoping they’ll change;
men marry women
hoping they won’t,
which, of course, is true.
Last, Gandhi, thin white tee shirt
tucked into white walking shorts;
thin halo of hair on his bald head.
He lets me know what I need to know:
This moment is the message.
____________________________________________
Bio:
Elaine M. Starkman is originally from Chicago, but has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for 43 years—with the exception when her husband, she, and their then three young children lived in Israel after 1967. Her husband worked as an M.D. in a small hospital near Tiberias when the children were lovingly cared for on Deganya, one of the first kibbutzim in the country, and she taught English in the Jordan Valley.
Upon returning to the U.S., they moved to Northern California and she began to write seriously. She had a fourth child and went back to school to earn an MA in Writing. Over the years she has written both prose and poems, and has edited several books, one of which won a 1999 PEN AWARD. Her fifth book of poems, Hearing Beyond Sound, was published in 2013. She currently teaching writing to adults in the East Bay.