Here Russia spreads her legs like the body compass of a prima ballerina

Here Russia spreads her legs like the body compass of a prima                                                                                 ballerina,
undoes a button on her soldier’s greatcoat by the railroad                                                                                 station
and gets poured like soup to the aluminum dish in the restaurant
where Raskolnikov confused the bread of doom
with virgins’ wombs.
Night, and in the Hotel Ural,
at the crossroad to Siberia,
I hang my beloved’s face upon the portrait of Lenin drawn on                                                                                 the wall.
Her lips are painted revolutionary red
and a sled-dog etches
in the snow of her body
the thousands of miles that separate her
from the hand that writes these lines
in vodka ink.

Translated by Vivian Eden

By Ronny Someck

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