by Tara Zafft
This morning sipping tea, my husband scanning headlines, says
The meek shall inherit the dirt. Which, still, to my ears
raised on heavy honey Christianity, sounds like sandpaper. But
sitting in my stiff Sunday clothes, I never understood
what the screaming preachers meant by inheriting the earth.
Because the only meek people I saw were women and they
were inheriting shit. Which made me think of Antonina,
the woman I lived with in Petersburg, thirty years ago. Antonina,
wife, mother of two sons, worker of two jobs and kitchen magician
who could stretch a bit of ground beef with milk-soaked stale
bread and eggs and fry up the tastiest hamburgers. I can still
taste the white onions on my tongue all these years later, and
pickles she’d place next to the patties. Pickles she’d
spend the summer canning with cucumbers she dug
from the ground from that postage stamp of a dacha
twenty miles north of St. Pete. I never remember
Antonina eating with us. She would stand at the
stove frying and frying and frying, grease collecting
on her clothes her face on the walls she’d have to
clean, while we hunched over full plates. I never
remember her even speaking, as she flipped and
plated more and more food. Until they were done.
I would listen to the men, hoping to improve
my Russian, but they hardly spoke, the only sounds
the clanking of forks and slurps and belches. Then
one night, when I couldn’t sleep I tiptoed my way
to the kitchen certain I was the only soul awake, when
I saw Antonina at the kitchen table, in front of her
a plate of prianiki and raspberry jam and sweet strong
Assam. Laugh-whispering into the phone something
about work, she stopped when she saw me. Said a quick,
poka milaya, and hung up. This is my time, she said.
And stood. Made her way to the window. Lit a cigarette
and opened the window to the minus thirty air. I didn’t smoke,
but asked if I could have one. And we stood near the
winter window till the cheap Russian filterless cigarettes burned
themselves out.
Tara Zafft has a BA from UC San Diego and PhD in Russian literature from the University of Bath, UK. She began writing poetry when she was thirteen, and while she submitted intermittently in her 30s while raising her young children, it was in her early 50s that she began to dedicate more time and attention to the craft of poetry. Since then, she has published her work in the anthology Rumors Secrets and Lies: Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice; Write-Haus; Aether Avenue Press; The San Diego Poetry Annual; Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal; and Dumbo Press. In addition, Tara regularly teaches poetry workshops.
Little Leaf Literary Journal 