by James Gurley

(Issue 1; posted February 1, 1997; archived February 20)

A country house in Estonia, June 1919

Sarah humors me. Winds the victrola
and Caruso's scratchy aria blossoms in the July heat.
What pleasure this is. My sons play gorodkee,
the snap of wooden blocks followed
by their laughter, and Sarah's shadow
stands over me where I have
bent down to weed my flower garden.
She offers me tea, its welcome relief

flooding through me
like Caruso's tenor, the beautiful
red geraniums so familiar
in my hands they are an intoxication
of memories. Of the work
I promise myself to forget here, those dogs
trussed up and bemused while I draw
the bilious pancreatic fluid
from them for experiments
some might call cruel

knowing surely the dogs will die.
Lately, I've begun to collect butterflies.
Coaxing them with whispers
into my net. Their frail wings,
their color patterns mounted under glass.
Slow revelations of the world's
order. That's how I explain to Sarah
my task, breaking my own vow

at our summer cottage
where exhausted from gardening I joke
to Sarah that the sky is a blue cerebellum
hoarding its secrets. And cutting deep
into the hidden crypt
of the skull I'm not afraid--wondering
from which nerve among the grey
neural fibers comes love, hunger, or fear?
She laughs at me, at the gorodkee

ball gone astray by her feet.
Sarah chides me about Lenin's promises
of money, of what we have earned
after years on rations of black bread
and rotten potatoes. Why does she
speak of this, of our son
lost to the revolution?

I offer Sarah flowers I've just clipped,
not to distract her but in answer,
for her face now is the one
comfort there is for me, the one
instinct I know will save me.
To touch her cheekbone, the smooth
ridge above her eyes.
And Sarah's faith. To know
where in the body such emotions arise,
this place of connections

in the brain that eludes me.
A servant has laid out our lunch.
Borscht with fresh fruit for dessert.
I savor each sliver of beet
on my tongue. I cannot believe
how good this tastes or describe this
delight, the way Sarah
cools each fragrant spoonful
with her breath and then swallows