A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

Nadya to Stalin, 1925

48 A Face to Meet the Faces Nadya to Stalin,1925 Shelley Puhak Otherwise, I will tell the world who was really Lenin’s wife— —Stalin’s attempt to blackmail Nadya Krupskaya, Lenin’s widow But you need a widow, no? for that pickled pear in your marble mausoleum. Like he needed me. Needed both of us. It can still be done, I know, but isn’t it easier to keep me? And I will go kicking, Soso, you must know by now. The not being in love, the always almost—he did need both of us, the tug and the pull. But in those days, I needed nothing. Bellies soft, jaws slack, lashes beating— I got to hear her three young ones snuffle in their sleep. Our children, I thought of them then. Oh, if only I’d had my own. I’d stay behind with the children, Inessa’s children, in the window, waving, watching. Her cheeks flamed and still I’d stay. Heads tented, mouths making theory, they would go striding off on those long walks, not to be in love, but almost. And he said no. He needed to work, he needed— I offered, you know, to leave him, three times. It had always been quiet between us. But she made that go away. Indeed, I may have loved her more than he did. 49 That Was Then You may think we were pecking eyes the whole time. No. True, she was thin and fair and française, and I was scorned. But I wasn’t always fat, Soso. You may think because I’m ugly— but you only like your women green. As if I was never young— your own wife was your typist first. She was barely sixteen, no? and you already going gray. So what’s a wife anyway? Why else Inessa’s direct line to the Kremlin, his white face, his white wreath on her coffin? What of it? Who, Soso, who will you tell? Everyone already knows— ...