Pilgrimage

for Pierre

My sore feet have stepped these stones before—

but sprightly—as though on the lettuce leaves

of salad days which paved our strolls here,

hand in hand, you once wrote, and not more ro-

mantic than our would-be-walks in Paris.

Maybe, though Neva white nights were cer-

tainly more innocent than ribald,

drunken lurching on the Seine, post-disco,

pre-lust, barefoot from too-high heels and wild

mating rituals. On this Field of Mars

the north wind blows lilac kisses through

my hair, now unsecured as then, when you

picked me a branch, ensuring babushka-

wrath, surefire censure of a crime a-

gainst the state and way, way too much leg.

A dormant order gusts up little

duststorms; sandy stirrings of chaste past

whip up the lone-swept bride’s dress, nettle

the photographer who’s been licked by

the eternal flame. Neglected place

with only carved stone to bear witness

to the fallen heroes of the pro-

letariate. If memory serves, broken

bottles, cigarette butts and their bearers

were forbidden by the old, forgotten

guard. My God, from where that sad, ragged

brass band? “The Road Is Long?” (“Those Were the Days?”)

No more insanity. Look, Peter’s

Summer Gardens, western rationale.

Long alleys peopled with stone allegor-

ies. At the end a pond, castle.

Didn’t there used to be swans here, Pierre?

June 20, 2000

St. Petersburg, Russia