“the lilies of the valley”

the lilies of  the valley

smell the same as when we picked them in the woods

with Aunt Lusya, and got yelled at

because they’re endangered and here we are pulling them up

at night mosquitoes in the village outhouse

fly at the dim bulb, smoke from the neighboring yards,

motorcycle roar in the road and promise of a storm tonight

the old showerstall is long locked where my mother and I washed in the downpour

when I was a child I loved looking at her breasts:

they seemed so good to me, I was happy

just to see them in passing somewhere in the bathroom

yesterday I saw a duck with ducklings, swimming after them

a little ferocious dog, beloved by his buzz-cut owner

like an only, natural son.

we washed my son today in the tub, I remember: they washed me

put the tub on a stool, another one underneath

I bent my head and they poured water down from a pan

then tied my wet hair up in a scarf

and wearing that scarf  I once saw my reflection in some glass

and like Narcissus I was shaken and thought I was so beautiful

that I couldn’t look away, and I never looked like that again

also I remember: in the storm the guys drove me around on their motorcycles

and Yura once let me drive while he sat behind crossing himself

as I tore down the highway at maximum speed

later Yura crashed, and I saw his twisted motorcycle in the road

so I understood: a man might crash on his motorcycle

or die in a fight, while what often awaits women is to be raped

“let me have you, before somebody rapes you,”

the first man I loved would say to me, when I was thirteen

and when I was fourteen, five gangster bros did

try to rape me; we grew up that way—like thistles

from the clotheslines with their pins wind tore the laundry

that had not been taken down in the storm, rainwater overflowed gutters poured from barrels

barrels blooming with sweet yellow pollen, we tore the heads off snout beetles

and from their bodies leaked a white liquid, like pus,

and they were saying something on the Mayak station on an old receiver

while the sky seethed—as though you’re boiling an egg, it cracks and some of the white leaks through

everywhere I saw this heavenly tide

seems God’s grandmother

washed the clothes with detergent powder, then

poured everything oh into the bushes

right onto the earth