8/1 0000

tomorrow's dead/lives the life in
what, form? never
more
or less, or what, these sketches
in the dark.

i'd the impossibility
out, the impossibility
withinout doubt with
inout doubt
iceflie floe free form freakin
not frozen frozen
decriminalize it baby it's love

comeonoron liveit live here it in it
begin it

now begin it
again be in it

tomorrow's not love it's tomorrow it's tomorrow it's
beautiful or something and it's-it here now live it

***

wooden chairs mark the schedules
of this life, i mean
me sit here, the extra spinning spit spinning
slow
sure
here
it
is

into me into you
such
are

in this place


--------
8/1 1203

he speaks Russian in his sleep
he spoke Russian to me in his sleep
he mumbled my name he mumbled Virginia
i said yes or what or something
and he mumbled
i said what and he mumbled
and i said i can't hear you and he
said shto vot
and from the couple weeks of Russian language i audited
back at SUNY i knew shto is it, it's
and vot
probably nothing
it's nothing
he said it's nothing to me in his sleep or half awake
he said Virginia mumble mumble shto vot

so i roll over again and think to myself that
"vot" means "nothing" in Russian then i think
"vote means nothing in Russian" and wonder to myself

what is choice here anyway i get
into the shower after he leaves
i had one and one half hours of sleep, three to four-thirty
or something, lying
there awake in the dark thinking
of the poem i wrote last summer about us
sleeping on the sand at the beach
"six or seven inches" it is called
from your hand figures in the phrasing
this almosttouching
this reaching silently and motionlessly across
(did he laugh about vot/vote as he learned English?)

so why does he, why did he once sign his email
"Hugs and kisses,"

but now i'm thinking shto maybe means is
not it's or it - yes i think shto is
like shto eto how are you
shto vot it's nothing
Shto vot? He left this morning
last poem i wrote with his name in it, if i remember
correctly,
he was still spelling it with ks
just before he switched to c
the tremendousness waiting so close to him in his country
i can feel in him how much was there so close and now
something, among other things we have the U.S.A.
and me AmericangirlVirginia born where Long Island

so the sleeping bag i use for a blanket is still
crumpled on the futon
this sparsely furnished room - you know this time Alec remembered
to bring a towel - i refuse to own bath towels
for reasons opaque to me
shirts do fine
i sit in the computer lab and note i smell of sweat and urine
i am wearing my bath towel
howzit feel to be an American slob ?
shto

is it some kind of horrible crime, you being here and all
i ask, thinking of his girlfriend,
who has been in St. Petersburg every singe time
he visits
does she exist? do I? shto
of course the last visit was last year fourth of July
zash vash
just phoneticize it girl until you learn
the language

if he comes back again to visit maybe we'll speak