They sang for me
the couple sharing my compartment
a balled from the 19th century
don't stir up old memories
the lyrics went
they'll only reawaken bygone griefs
ah the suffering that seems so dear
so essential to the Russian soul!

I was eighteen
you're just a child she told me
this Russian beauty in her mid-twenties
and she was right
her Uzbek lover sang
with a high tenor voice and sweet
they slept together in the bunk
above me

That morning
as we pulled into the station
in near darkness
a fellow student peering
through the steamy glass
exclaimed Sankt Petersburg!
words that in time
would prove prophetic

Back in Moscow
after the concert and my debut
on Soviet TV
none too convincing
I was invited
to her apartment for a party
the occasion was
her husband's birthday

the Uzbek singer too
was in attendance
in the kitchen cooking up pilaf
the War I thought the War
back in America it seemed so distant
here in Russia still so recent
so disruptive of the fragile ties
that hold our world together