A Tryst with Russian Poets

We used to meet up once a week
for sex & wine & ham &cheese. 
Now she’s gone, so she must speak
through shards of poems she shared, like these: 
Tsvetaeva’s writhing frozen birch
 while meeting Don Juan behind the church;
Gumilev’s loping giraffe beside 
Lake Chad, the amazing shapes on its hide;
Mandelstam’s swinging on a rope with board
in the fevered memory of his own backyard;
Akhmatava’s lover in an ill-starred
tryst, temporary though still adored.
Without the pieces she so lovingly glossed
these marvels would be lost.