homesickness (confessions of a polluted pond)

Eva Gelman | Fall 2021

this place that i am entering 
looks nothing like the 
old one. my fingers know the key better than my mouth and my tongue, loose from
wine and english, shivers with it at night. homesickness is a gentle lover 
and i paint her with candlelight, 
barukh ata. 

a growing city, like a child,
needs something to drink from
i like to think that the pond
loved the gaping mouth.
it’s nice to remember that
this city was insatiable
long before it learned my name.

i’m a little homesick now
that the clock struck four and
someplace, i'm walking back from school
past the old cathedral and the pierogi stand
that always smelled like poppyseeds
and some other place i’m here
this room is bare and lovely and i am
writing down a list of things that fill this
strange, city-shaped vacuum in me
like writing the same poem for months
or learning to love the stranger i’m with
the strange shape-place i’m in
when i close my eyes,
i imagine you, asleep
quiet as our love
and vast as this city.

the pond was filled in and
now there is a fountain there
and now that love letter i scribbled
in the sand
is no longer.
but you are still there,
like a lovesick mermaid,
swimming in the moscow river.

this place that i am entering
tastes like sweet tea left over from last night
and ninety-cent granola i bought while waiting
for this month’s allowance of fluoxetine
like getting married to you after all these years
like meeting you and knowing
that i’ve been waiting forever
to recognize your shape.