National Poetry Month -- Conjunction And

Conjunction And

We met on a Sunday no that's not it
We met before but that's not it
You drank your coffee through a straw and so what
Down and out, rolling stone, gun in your pocket.
You took me by the hand, took me in hand, you took me.
And the tree thick with red berries and the hills and the hills
And we laughed and listened and God knows what else
And the tree thick with red berries and the bark and the bark.
And we had each other not stopping like hunted beasts.
And though all creatures get sad after the act well we're just not any creatures.
And we grew from any old garbage and raked through garbage.
And you pressed the pearls you found into my skin. Now it's January already,
And the magnolias, here, pardon the image, have put out their dog tongues
Pink against the gray precipitation and every time I walk by
These wonders I remember the smell of your hand
Pulled from me, pulled from you.

--

This poem is by Russian poet Polina Barskova and is included in the Dalkey Archive Press's Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology edited by Evgeny Bunimovich and published in 2008. To purchase, click here.