60

the empress anastasia in new york

Jan Clausen

Anastasia was long rumored
to be the only member of
the Russian imperial family
to escape execution

by the Bolsheviks.

1.

it has begun
the rain

the rain-
shaped sleep
of women who nod in doorways

dreaming of good times
bars and indian
summer

2,

in the dream

picture it is
augustiam

standing on the grass
beside blue water

i am sixteen

full of zen and
existentialism

acid lust wearing

a two piece

bathing suit i

had my body then
browned, frowning
bored as havana
before the revolution

3.

in my mother’s house there are
shelves well stocked with

cans, mixes, paper products.
dreams of land. dreams

of flight to the country.

these white-skinned dreams

of cities without color,
catastrophes we do not name,
these dreams of dreamless sleep,
remembering nothing.

4.

she hid joints of mutton
beneath her skirt

her pockets bulged
pounds of butter

whole hams in her suit-
case the good bitter
taste of real coffee

in her mouth she roamed
streets freely

the soldiers never
caught her the jews
trooped off to treblinka

5.

in viet nam arthritis

is common due to

months years spent crouched
in damp bomb shelters

and i remember my
mother’s soft

face skin with the
fallout scare
shelter with the
shelves lined with
canned peaches
jugs of water

the nuclear family
in the atomic age and
SAC is in the air

the bay of pigs cuban

missile crisis got stuck in my childhood
throat my mother

moved the iron

back and forth she

listened about suez

on the radio

and mother still writes how she
hopes, keeps her shelves
stocked, how she helps

these expatriate vietnamese
who can’t find jobs

in their adopted country

6.

please give me a little piece
of meat for

i cannot eat your bread
your unhulled rice

for i am a princess
in my own right
country

my grandmother’s face
was famous
in the nineties

(and castro hid

in the mountains

the jungles covered
ho chi minh

and mao is whispered
change from out of the north
and lenin rode east

in a sealed train

and iskra means
asingle spark

can start a prairie fire)

and we came
unto neon
dollar signed
miami

7.

the years
her mother singing
in her hair

you are the rightful
empress
anastasia

but she wakes in nightmare
screaming this word
“pretender”

mother
what really happened
in that cellar

8.

the streets get colder
she grows more weary
of lies, potatoes,

her mother

still mourning the tsar.

her room looks out

on an airshaft. the carpet

isworn. the bronx

is burning. she never saw the neva.

she pawns the last
of the icons.

9,

in spring she crosses
over, joins
the resistance.