Oils on 40 x 40 cm stretched canvas (web shop).
“Three Sisters”
After Adrienne Rich’s “Women” and Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
We are three like and fitted flames flickering on the fit-tossed sea.
People watch us from ashore, tossing up and down, glowing less and more.
They stretch out in our desires for a foreign shore.
One of us wears black, seeks light and love, confesses all, cries easily,
longs but does not: act, hope, pray to some great director above.
She is drinking away Moscow, has not enough gall to go, makes her heart measly.
Another wears red, but feels her young blood already faded, marriage jaded.
She is giving away the wardrobe and the rooms, keeping papers graded.
She is too practical for Moscow, feels her time already traded.
The third sister is a yellow flame, pale and bright.
Her happy animal body knows how to dance in the light.
She plans to refuse its demands, force herself farther from delight.
As if to get to Moscow, we must only work, denying sleep and play.
As if the waves get there by crashing, smashing the light of day.
But flames on the sea keep glowing by reflecting light in spray.
Some days we are already there, although the sea never carried us home.
We had to do it ourselves, vagabonding, though we never meant to roam.
It happened that the currents helped us along, as time passed
and our own shores were wrong.
Our own shores were no longer ours.
So reaching Moscow became within our powers.
