While Watching Russian Films

While Watching Russian Films

Silos are waking in the sun
and the mother is pouring wine to the boys
watering it down with rainwater and you’ll never know
what is in the blue box drowning with the father
waves first circling his fingers
then his wrists and it would be wonderful to die
like this, slowly. Children running on a beach
calling papa, papa and everything is more
than beautiful, it is lonely--
a boy’s cut lip, black hair sinking
deeper and deeper. The body blooms
at the bottom of a river. Camera goes black
then to the mother pouring wine and now
you know everything. It is simple to die.
To show dying. Do it slowly
like filling a cup.

The women are always beautiful
or ugly and even the houses are sad
flooding the screen then disappearing to white.
And you want to be cold, to have love
even though their tongues would be blue, locked together
but truth does not matter, it’s obsolete
and here’s a quality you admire. He could be enough
if it was cold enough and truth did not matter.
And the women did not grow to look like their mothers.

Generally there is no sex
but violins mate as if underwater
and these hums are lullabies
to the fish in plastic bags, breathing in, out.
You always come back to the silos
or the father dying and heaviness descends
slowly and is comforting. A blanket
to keep you warm when nothing else matters.