BOAT

There is a wooden shed by the Moscow Presnya subway station,
a Georgian eatery where my friend is served
the best dumplings. He is in the back room next to the dusty ficus
by the kitchen door.
This used to be a local community club
where Brezhnev’s portrait hung on a dilapidated wall.

My friend downs a shot of vodka, topped by sparkling water,
wolfs down stuff on his plate,
but thoughtfully. He remembers the misty Hudson,
us together on the Circle Line, passing
through summer, by piers and parks,
by a restricted area,
listening to the Indian song of Canadian winds.

I am sitting at the river café, having
penne arrabiatta, drinking Valpolichella,
looking at the same boat
that is heading toward our meeting point,
always there.

Dust floats from the Metro-North tracks.
Here you can get real close to the river.
On the opposite side is the Park Police Headquarters.

It’s nobody’s business how we throw our words, and they fly away
on northerly winds.
That’s how poems are. This is our meter.

So from a distance we are both looking at the boat,
into our plates, at the sky;
I look at my Caesar salad, my friend at his dumplings.

Manhattan floats to Canada as the Flying Dutchman
to our meeting point,
God knows where,
where our words freeze in flight,

lit by unreachable light
in the boundless, echoing,Arctic space.
We are not there yet,
since our words are
still flying.

Translated from Russian by the author.

Andrey Gritsman is a poet and a writer, born and raised in Moscow. Since 1981 he lives in the US, in Manhattan, and works as a physician. Andrey is the author of more than 100 publications and several times was nominated for Pushcart Prize. His work was anthologized and translated into several languages. He authored several collections of poetry, essays and short prose.