You must learn to dance Spanish,
like that girl who changed her name to Czaritzina.
You must learn to dance closely
over torn paper roses and a broken wedding band.
On the bank of a river that catches itself by the tail,
like her you will be redirected; flick your eyelashes away
from dead machines in the monastery gardens
and learn to laugh in humble rooms
like the mothers of sons who wear medals
on the one good arm they have left.
You will learn to cry in front of nothing
except eternal flames and Presidents.
You must learn to dance Spanish
over torn paper roses and a broken wedding band.
In the bosom of the Empire, learn to clap your hands
like the beauty queens with sunken chests
from a town outside Chernobyl,
who stare at the moon, waiting to be drawn
like the tides along a pavement.
Somewhere beneath the oil built skyline,
outside the museums where aristocrats cry
over paintings of peasants dragging their carts
barefoot in the snow.
Like the exhausted Tupolev
falling to pieces, dragged out on show in the airfield,
you must learn what it is to move nations.
You must learn to drink cognac like vodka,
(this is not some sleepy province).
You must learn to dance closely
over torn paper roses and a plaster cast of Lenin’s hand.
Like that girl who changed her name to Czaritzina,
you must wish your eyes transmitted like stars
disbelief in gravity, revolutions and planets.
You must learn to dance closely; for a while
not have to beg someone to believe
when you say you are beside them.
* Neighbourhood in Russian
** A Metro Station in Moscow