CONVERSATIONS IN A CAR VIII
Ashok Niyogi
This is the next in a series of poems called Conversations in a Car. Many of these conversations did not take place actually in a car. They are obviously embellished by my convoluted imagination, but the feeling is something I really wanted to convey because I thought it was very rare.
It may not be in the best words or rhyme
But then I don't like chicken and thyme.
So, as long as I can get under your skin
Perhaps I would have made it.
We sat in our kitchen on kitchen chairs
And you sang old love songs for me.
You remember the Dolly Parton ones.
Through the window there was that meadow
Beside Leninsky,
White with snow and the Marlborough hoarding.
But when you sang it stopped snowing.
Then on the sky behind the KGB building
There was a rainbow, why was it so?
And those cassettes you recorded for me,
The ones I took to Ulan Uday,
I had the guest-house people play them
Over and over for me through the night:
They thought I was tight.
And when I came back, your voice, with a cold,
On my voice machine didn't sound right,
Saying you had fever and you were bad.
Did you ever want to know whether I had fever
Was my breathing heavy on the phone,
Did I cry?
I don't remember,
I don't know why.
I think because in those early days
There were too many good-byes.
Life has too many things to say
We can't listen to them all.
It twists and turns and goes the other way.
Sometimes it talks in poetry,
Breaks out into song,
Sometimes it talks in stark naked prose.
But in those early days
You were always blooming like a rose.
You had just fallen in love, you see.
But I remember the harder times
When you kept blooming and blooming for me.
I will never forget how you shifted
The mattress to my side of the bed
When I had pain in my back
And slept on the springs.
Those are the times I really dread
Because they will not let me live
And they will not let me die.
I will never forget trying on shoes for you
Totally drunk at the Arbat
And saying she's the same size as me.
I actually had to walk in high heels.
I will never forget the seafood restaurant in Tverskaya,
Afternoons with heavy lunches and a Zhiguli.
How can I forget your Olympic runs
To the toilet as soon as you reached home?
How can I forget the sound of your key at your door?
How can I forget Amy
Jumping all over your mink?
How can I forget the gigantic breakfast
You had at the American Diner?
How can I forget your brisk walks
To the photocopier on Leninski?
How can I forget the Rive Gauche in your hair?
How I can I forget the second bedroom
Which you use as a warehouse?
How I can I forget your refrigerator
Which is stocked with food a year old?
I remember you eating salads
From plastic boxes because you were suddenly hungry.
I remember the bottles of wine under the bed.
I even remember the shape of the glass
In which you gave me my vodka.
I remember your businesslike tread,
I remember your holding my hand
To help me cross the road.
Your voice tingles in my ear,
Your voice dazzles me still.
So it will be,
So it always will.
I am not ashamed of nostalgia
I never will.
