Day of the Border Guards: Poems

Thirty Years Later

Thirty Years Later Evening and snow: the bus draws a line feathered in lead, the forest flickers with indifferent flakes. The season feels fresh, forgiving. Behind us, now, the stone-toothed hills, the broken-back churches, convents and stations where women were shorn: all safely behind, all shriven. Before us the city, white licking the brick, the stone shoulders, lips stiffened to bronze—and Volodya Kornilov, back bent in sentence, clearing snow from the pavement. Why couldn’t I see? All my life, I’ve plied the sidelines, doubting idols, seeking out frauds: the fartsovchik dealing icons for jeans, the girl trading friendship for my winter coat, the boy who flirted and smirked, wanting to meet somewhere just us two. I’ve believed in no one— everyday saints were alien 51 to me. Volodya, you know better than most how long it takes to nourish a soul: seed languishing in wintry soil, sprouting in secret, thrusting up a new, green shoot when least expected. Sometimes it takes thirty years: snow spattering the windshield, shovel scraping the curb, papery rasp of a workman’s song, crisp, visible, suspended in the freezing air. Vladimir Kornilov, in memoriam 52 ...