“Russian Interlude” by Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer

My father first taught me the family business of tongue.
I gummed clumsily the long vowels, the clipped

consonants. I spelled them in my sleep. How proud
he was when I repeated metro phrases: the doors,

closing, opening. Осторожно! Be careful!
There is always a lesson here, in the imperative.

There is always someone with shoes
and someone without. My father tells me

of how he and his first wife fled to Finland
to have my brother. He said

you couldn’t imagine Soviet healthcare
back then, nor would you ever want to.

And there was the time the police raided
his friend’s apartment; took the dog off the chain

and let him shit everywhere. The friend
had destroyed the bug they placed in his telephone.

They replaced the bug,
left the dog where he was.

Every night, my father would say aloud
Goodnight Nikita Sergeyevich, wherever

you may be. There is a lesson there, about a man
with a tractor, and the man being dragged behind.

There is something to be said
about inheritance. I pinned that country

like a badge to my blouse,
that country, with its red and matriotic glare

and my ear, once impeccable, started
to slip back into the curious rhythm of English

so much so my mother was concerned,
my mother, who stopped speaking Russian years ago.

Осторожно! Be careful, she told me.
You don’t want to lose it now.