[Since I already have five new sections of 200 more or less ready for publication, I am going to try posting them in reverse order. Some, like this one (Section 11), are songs; others are more narrative in nature. Although the characters will be introduced in more depth later in the posting/earlier in the poem, some of these sections nevertheless serve as free-standing pieces of verse.]

Zhenya’s Song for the Opium Poppy

I crave the needled thread of joy

that tracks my veins

and sews my life into the history

of my country and the world

that flowered and flagged on Afghan plains

and falls in showers of florid blood

from overflying planes in England

on Remembrance Day. A Jihad bullet

pierced my father’s throat

and he is heard no more: reduced

to zip in body bag, thread sewn

in loving shroud and fresh red flowers

atop a grave site in St. Petersburg.

*

I, in a toilet somewhere, honor him

with drugs prescribed by docs

and decadence and despair. And

somehow in this misted ritual

of self-destruction and remembrance,

we two are one again.