Someone Else's Story, and: A Little Onion Music

Someone Else's Story · Lawrence Kearney 1.a field of goldenrod It's September, 1905, & we're on the Trans-Siberian Railway— headed for the edge of the earth, though the plains dip & roll endlessly. Kirilov scowls like an ape as he punches our tickets. He never gives the correct change because he knows the passengers fear him. Outside the train, just out of reach, the last light drains west, pulling its pink skirts after it. Thousands of moths rise from the dark field: suddenly, out of their midst, a wren appears, beating & beating at the window. It has Mother's face! 2.our village: 1908 In winter, our village grayed to a cinder: white at the edges, but dark inside. People kept to themselves. Even the tinker neglected his rounds, preferring a bottle of cheap vodka to haggling for potatoes. Only the gravedigger kept busy. Once or twice a week the bells would sound, & cursing his wife, his luck, 46 · The Missouri Review the cold, Krevchenko went out to dig another hole. "What a waste," he'd mutter later in the tavern, "the ground's harder than my grandmother's kettle. And I dig it up just to put it back. And in between dump in the dead. Poor bastards. God knows if they ever thaw out, even in Heaven." 3. reading The Brothers Karamazov It's like looking down a well: you see yourself far away, living someone else's story. There, on the other side of the water, you've made all the right moves. Perfected, your possibilities look back at you. And when you leave, your life stays behind, under the water, & you never get it back. Lawrence Kearney The Missouri Review · 47 A Little Onion Music ¦ Lawrence Kearney In red-net bags at the market 5 pounds for a dollar they cluster like granmas, all belly & tears. And later, the peeling, the sting in the eye, the sweet in the skillet with butter & salt. A fellow earthling, though nothing is like it on earth; or else, is, 6 we know it, & we weep for what we think we are: all peel & no fruit, orbits of flesh around nothing. 48 · The Missouri Review ...