‘—in mid-step, in the yellow suspended capillaries, I
Freeze; the guests have come unbidden; retreat, retreat!
I trust my husband not to dash my son’s brains out, I
Trust the engineer was sober; trust the bombs sleep.
I check the locks, I check the locks, I check the locks.
I trust my body, I trust my hands. Women have committed
Murder in their sleep. I dream of violins and clocks;
Is there a spot on the hinge where my liver is fitted
To my soul? Death can be asymptomatic. Halt, halt!
I trust the crack in my kitchen floor was planned; water
Will not kill my mother when she drinks; the salt
Has not been poisoned by the orphaned daughter
Of a sociopathic crackhead; I trust I will not be next—
I do, I do, I do — what, Ma? — yes, trust God, but check, check.
Mariya (Masha) Deykute is a Russian-American poet, editor and translator. She is a graduate of the UMass: Boston MFA program and currently teaches rhetoric and creative writing in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan. She is the co-founder and chief editor of the trilingual journal Angime. Her work in English has most recently appeared in Asymptote, PANK, notokens, Tiger Moth Review and Seventh Wave. Her work in Russian has most recently appeared in polutona and Literranova: an anthology of Almaty writing. Mostly, she writes about the wilderness that exists inside and alongside all of us.
