Elegy from Chechnya with a Fallen Bird
Rent from DeepDyve- Elegy from Chechnya with a Fallen Bird
A bird flies into the closed windowOf my kitchen in St. Petersburg & is goneOr sliced by the freezing air, 4 floors downLeaves a moist pink opening for me to enter
A nearly destroyed apartment building in GroznyWith a face like an army of dark, openMouths, each a memory of a windowLike a knife retaining a memory of breadIn the hand of my guide, a Chechen widow
The look in her eyes is naked, is outsideAs if hunger & fear ended privacy in themI show her your last photo, she nods, says"The room where the Russian soldiers stayedWas here." We go up go up then enter whatHas no door no floor no walls Only the sky— [End Page 104]
Svetlana Beggs's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in CALYX Journal, Hayden's Ferry Review, Pheiades, Columbia Poetry Review, New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a work-study scholarship in poetry to Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, she now lives in Seattle.
