© 2004  Olga Grun

Dancing Razor

A dancing razor had drawn

a red bracelet on her wrist

by the time when I found her

on the bathroom floor.

Putting a bandage on her hand,

I agreed to be her blindfold,

handkerchief, even bandage,

but not the dancing razor.

She said one had to cut three times

to make it deep enough

and then keep the hand under water

so blood doesn't coagulate,

speaking as calmly as when explaining

how to cut chicken to fry. No, wrong,

then she talked with more disgust, 

maybe because she hated cooking. 

Listening to Dad's Steps

When the Sun went down,
I swallowed life 
like nothing to lose.
I threw wasted dinner 
and hope in the trash can.

A face in the mirror

was pale as tranquilizer,

broken on my tongue 
by desperate waiting;

three pills lacking,

two dropped,
a failed taste

of empty consolation.

The steps were yours

but slow, and the key

could not recognize the lock.
Your drunken breath

smelled of betrayal,
and I knew better

than to trust ever
again.

Life Portrait

She works as a janitor - close to the house.
Going home for lunch, she drags her feet,
heavy like buckets of sand. Her forehead's

wrinkled as trash.

With her stomach empty as the shovels
she put aside, she won't have time to eat.
She needs to feed her grownup son,
an invalid.

She sweeps aside bitter thoughts,
as garbage with her broom. Aged shoes,

skyashen, forgot their birth color. 
Her husband's left years ago.

Men cannot swim with a stone on their neck.

Mothers cannot afford to drown or drop the stone.
Grave day outside, but at home she'll find

life-lit paintings. Proud of her son,

she said it to everybody at his exhibition.
She'll find him where she'd left him,

painting, holding both pain and brush

with his right foot.

All work is copyrighted property of Olga Grun.

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