by Alexander Stessin

* * *

The last employee
Of phone sex industry
Somewhere in the state of Ohio
Services her only remaining client
After hours, for old time’s sake, free of charge.
The internet flood of sex chats, porn sites, and all
Has pushed the two of them to the curb of life.
They’re not what they used to be,
Though, as everyone knows,
The voice ages slower than the body,
And the body they’ve never seen:
All these years
Their passion’s remained truly blind,
Their closeness — remote.
One could even call them
Purists of a fading genre.
At eight PM,
Starting with the customary
“What’s your name, baby?”
She lights up a cig and, hearing his familiar voice,
Exhales with tenderness:
“Nice to meet you, Ricardo.”

by Alexander Stessin

* * *

Across the Bering Strait
all winters come
with specks of light
and particles of powder
too stark to see
and little in the way
of localizing any higher power.
through the blank language
of Manhattan snow,
its slanted measure of peregrination,
each day
like a mass transit passenger
inches its way
to exit at the station.
so goes the tune
that someone else records
among brick college buildings
and impasses
contrived designs
unevenly lit words
white nights
black mountains
everything that passes.

by Alexander Stessin

On a poorly lit morning in O’Hare airport
my memory serves me a dejavu:
there was a waiting area just like this one
last winter in Istanbul where we spent four rainy days
warming ourselves with sahlep from a vendor in Sultanahmet,
tourist spot devoid of people in the off-season,
and the first two days were enough for us,
on day three we no longer felt
like stepping out of the hotel room,
felt like staying in, just like I did here,
in Chicago, where I spent two rainy years
in the midst of my teenage off-season,
and where I am returning now,
twenty something years later.

This is how consciousness —
hardly a stream, more like a trickle —
escapes back to childhood, and from its shallow depth
emerges a phrase or a gesture, dragging along a someone,
that go-with-the-flow Yuri, who in fifth grade
served as a punching bag for the class alpha-males
and by eleventh grade would become their reliable ride,
whenever they needed a designated driver —
he was the only other Russian kid in that school,
my first friend in Chicago, though in truth
my friendship with Yuri was just an excuse:
at night I would dream of his sister, but she
was older than me, had a trendy hairstyle,
knew about Kuryokhin and the artists of Soviet underground,
educated us too, took us to the movies once or twice,
gave me fashiontips, told me to grow out my hair,
too bad it all frizzed up, and when I jerked my head
in an effort to toss my bangs like an eighties rock star,
people mistook this head jerk for a strange motor tic . . .

I reach for my phone, pull up Facebook, type in her first
and last name, and on the picture of a woman with graying hair,
squinting at the camera from under the palm of her hand,
I see the same backdrop: the abandoned Sultanahmet district,
Blue Mosque, Topkapy Palace . . .
What’s more, the date
when the picture was taken appears
to coincide with the time when I was there,
everything coincides, all the background details,
so much so that if I wanted to, I could easily
convince myself that I too am in that picture —
one of the blurry passengers in the back,
on the river cruise ship “Bosphorus Tours,”
that I am one of them, unrecognizable after all these years,
just like the gray-haired woman at the forefront of memory,
just like all these people, looking out into the emptiness
beyond the still frame, instructed by the cruise-ship captain
to keep an eye out for the watchtower of some old Ottoman fort,
which can be clearly seen from here on a sunny day,
but today there is only fog, and nothing comes into view.

by Gali–Dana Singer
     translated by Anna Halberstadt

* * *

City, that does not exist anymore.
Blocks, that could be crossed
In one hundred ways not found on a map.
Capillary network of alleys.  Parsley and mint in cans
from olive oil.
Toilet seats in every courtyard as part of garden design.
A glass with unfinished coffee in a box with rosemary.
A half of a Shabbat challah on a low fence.
Small paper garbage strewn under feet.
Soil-resistant walls stained with mold.
Funny quiet people in worn clothes.
Loud rude voices of others, and jays.  Pants falling off.
Wrinkled paisley-patterned skirts.
Wooden shutters, colored glass,
Cardboard in place of transoms.
Time works wonders,
They’ll grow to love each other, rusty menschele and meidele.
A couple of teenagers sitting in a lotus pose
on broken pavement.
Red top-hats of Royal Mail.
The mailman comes every morning.
Faded striped canopies.
All is well, all is well.
Sloppy eucalyptus trees,
Shedding all year round.
Gloomy dusty cypresses, releasing blackbirds
At sunset.
Mutilated pine trees with glimmering cones.
Bent over figures.
Familiar tired faces of trees, stones and people.
Say hi on the go, don’t linger,
How are you?  How are you feeling?  Continue on your way.
A city, that still exists, but is already leaving.
A city, that will soon disappear.
Watch it.
Follow it.
How much has it actually changed?
Guttural cooing of dirty-pink turtledoves.  Roses, burning down
During the first khamsin.
Aphis on rose-hips.  Doors always open.
In the twilight — swifts, at sunrise — sparrows.
Parrots and mynas did not live here then.
Ministers used to walk the streets and shop.
Hedgehogs and geckoes come out at night.
The sun does not peer into my windows.
Smells or laurel, jasmine, urine and grills.
Of perspiration, dust and pita bread.
How much can one remember?
Answer all questions with — “it’s all right.”

* * *

devoted: doors, windows
unreliable: floor, ceiling, walls
loyal: glass animals
traitors: me and dead dogs

you look and don’t get it
in the blackest point of the eye
an enfilade of courtyards
is held anyhow by a thread

rooms and corridors are sown
as if for a dead person
when you see them in a dream
where else would you dream of them?

stolen: freedom
gifted: horses and people
horses mean — expect lies
people — expect people, it means
the dream was prophetic

so that in the end, and when is the end?
everything would fit not into a telescope —

but into a suspiciously simple device —
of myopic reproaching glance
of a body removing itself.

July 12 -14, 2019

* * *

A survivor’s error
is not that relevant,
a small deviation.

For example, it is common knowledge,
that all, who lived long and happily,
died.
All, who did not,
died as well.

Survived only the ones, who did not live.
What kind of life is that?

There, in semi-oblivion,
those, who had not lived their other-lives,
on dressers and shelves,
gathering dust, placed in order,
according to height,
color,
in alphabetic order,
year of publication,
not recorded in a notebook
with diagonal lines
(it seems, they are not making them anymore),
no use for anyone
but loved by us,
random thoughts
will be lost in gaps
among names
that we had called ourselves.

And still — dust
in soft silent balls
or thin even layers
or — when in a sunray —
particles are suspended trembling
is inimitable
and if you sneeze
and watch it getting scared
but still dancing in the interval
between the conclusion and the open-ended finale
and still, envy for dust
in soft silent balls
or thin even layers
or — when in a sunray —
gets guilded
does not stand a justification
in unbeing.