I will go to Moscow in my head,
Watch the onion domes peel off their light,
Walk the Square where, at one side,
Imprecise as a slip of ink on paper
Someone will wave; I will know the sounds
Of the words meshing around me,
A gabble of ordinary people making a world:
I will wear a fur hat and await, as if reading
The end of a story by Lermentov,
The challenge, the offer of choice of weapons
While small snow flicks a change of season.
There are boot-prints encrypted in the frozen grass,
And in my head when I nod two unmoving figures
Drown in a welter of iced water.
Fred Johnston’s most recent collection is Rogue States (Salmon Poetry). He lives in Galway, Ireland.
Related
Content from our partners
This article appears in the 06 Mar 2019 issue of the New Statesman, The next crash