I’m beginning to understand hunger now,
when famine stories become truths

when, pushing aside books that speak of collectivization’s

a) political reasons,
b) statistical numbers, and
c) migratory patterns,

I watch her face as she tells me the story of her great-grandfather,
who slaughtered his entire herd rather than see it fall into the hands of strangers

her grandfather was five years old then,
but still shudders when he speaks about

the cries of the horses
and the blood that stayed on the snow for days

she has learned this story carefully;

one word,
one day,
one tear
at a time

the famine is her truth now, and in this telling she makes it mine -
if only for today

I am beginning to understand now what it takes
for a mother to mix water and dirt into a pan and call it bread;

coaxing, begging, pleading
her children to put just one handful into their swollen bellies,
placing a tiny piece on her own tongue, then chewing and smiling
before secretly spitting it back into the pan,
so that much more will be left for them

and I think now too I am beginning to understand why,
on a rainy afternoon in a suburb by the sea,

I once found my father weeping over a single slice of sausage
that I, not liking its dried skin and day-old flavor,

had so carelessly thrown away

They arrive in darkness,
slowly, tentatively,
eyes squinting under flickering streetlights

Is this the place? their questioning faces seem to say
Have we really found it, is this actually going to happen?

The consular section won’t open for another two hours
but here they stand, holding down their places in line,
knowing that being in front or behind
means the difference between leaving and staying

A teenaged boy from out of town
digs his hands into his pockets;
he travelled for two days to get to the city
and the bus just got in an hour ago -
no time to wash or change his clothes -
but he’s first in line and
has a form signed
by his uncle,
who lives somewhere in London
and has promised to help him

stand to the side, stand to the side
and please make way for passersby

Beside him stands a middle-aged woman,
bottle blonde hair and skin-tight jeans,
engaged to some stranger who wanted a wife;
he thinks he’s getting a Russian blonde,
not someone from Kazakhstan,
but she is Russian,
just not from Moscow,
and now her hair is blonde -
so what difference does it make?
she speaks no English
but has memorized
the questions they will ask her,
and has learned to nod in all the right places
and pretend that, yes, she really is in love

stand to the side, stand to the side
and please make way for passersby

A young woman hurries to the end of the line,
she knows she’s later than she meant to be
but she tore her stockings going out the door and
had to change her entire outfit;
graduated top in her class and wants to study abroad,
just one semester, but that should be enough
because she’s young and pretty
and that’s also what these foreign companies like;
in her bag she carries reams of documents,
certificates, letters of invitation, bank statements -
proof that she belongs in their world
no, she is ready to lie,
of course I have no intention
of overstaying my visa,
Kazakhstan is my home after all

stand to the side, stand to the side,
and please make way for passersby

A security guard steps out of his booth,
counts off the first twenty people
then pulls a rope between them and the others;
these three have made the morning cut

How much longer now?
they huddle together
checking their watches,
and clutching their files;
embassy staff are arriving
doors are being unlocked,
lights and computers slowly turned on

the sidewalk is getting crowded now,
commuters going about their business;
a hazy half-light of sun and smog
pushes into this ordinary morning
those who have decided to stay

the guard leads the teenaged boy through the gates,
the rest of the group shuffles one step forward,
silent and expectant, waiting and breathing as one

today’s two step has begun

stand to the side, stand to the side,
and please make way for passersby

Karina is eight years old and speaks
enough English to tell me her name but no more

She is the only child here, dragged along
because her mother was only told
about this meeting yesterday and
couldn’t find a babysitter in time

I am the only foreigner here,
invited to give the opening lecture
on educational change in Kazakhstan

I speak from hastily written notes,
pausing every third sentence for the translator;
my Russian is not good enough to know if what
she is saying is also what I was saying

Later, I wander the resort grounds
and find Karina alone on the riverbank,
with a triumphant smile she uncurls her fist to show me
dozens of tiny sequins collected from the floor
of the hotel ballroom, remnants of last week’s wedding;
against the grey of the dirty snow, her hand holds our
joyous treasure trove of reds, blues, golds and silvers

She grins and hands me a tiny silver star;
I hold it between my fingers and make a wish
then drop it in the swirling river,
where it spins and glides against some rocks
then disappears
Look, I whisper in English, it’s going somewhere magic

Her eyes on me, Karina opens her hand so all
her sequins fall into the river at once,
then squats by the water to watch them travel
Going, she shouts, pointing and calling my name
going, going, going!

A burst of Russian words silences my new playmate;
Karina’s mother is standing on the road above us,
stonefaced, calling her only child back to the safety
of upper ground, of children wrapped tightly in warm coats and solid facts;

calling us both back to their world where risks and dreams simply do not happen

about looking at the snow-capped mountains from my bedroom window, touching the spring flowers blooming by the sidewalk, or breathing the warm spring air that makes folks smile at each other again and say yes, we made it through yet another winter

Instead, I’m telling you about a town north of here, one I have never seen, where sometime last month a factory accidentally caught fire and released toxic smoke for three days until the entire town fell sick – classrooms empty, shops unattended, doctors told to record every patient as showing cold-like, treatable symptoms so there would be no paper trail for investigators to follow - so the Swiss company who owned the plant was forced into damage control and headquarters released a memo in Russian and Kazakh stating that women who were pregnant at the time of the fire may have been exposed to harmful chemicals that could result in miscarriage or birth defects, and that any woman choosing to terminate her pregnancy could do so in secret and at the company’s expense

Or another town west of here, again one I have not yet visited, where tests show that dust
from the vanished sea has contaminated women’s bodies with dangerous metals, and that under no circumstances should new mothers be allowed to breastfeed their children, but local health authorities refuse to release this information in case it brings birthrates down even more, and they would all lose their jobs because the hospital would be closed

But abortion is considered a crime here, not legally but culturally, and wouldn’t a pregnant woman in a small town be recognized by hospital staff, and wouldn’t someone eventually spill the beans and say that she had killed her child, and would that hospital even be safe if smoke from the fire had entered it too, so why didn’t the company offer to evacuate the women to Switzerland or at least the capital for some decent treatment, and if you had to choose between a life of rumor and shame in an isolated mining town and delivering a treasured though damaged first son, what the hell would you do?

And if your baby has been crying all night and your breasts are leaking and nothing like formula is sold in the shops where you live, and even if it were you might not have any money to buy the stuff because you lost your job when they found out you were pregnant (or your husband drank his own salary away last night) then you will do the only thing a mother knows and that is feed your child with what your body provides, and when your baby falls ill or does not develop properly then of course it is you who will be blamed

You must have wanted to read something easier too, a nice spring poem that would make you sigh and say how interesting her life over there sounds, hey honey let’s check our air miles and see if we can get in a visit this summer, not something that would hurt the way this does - so if you want to hear about yurts and pastures and camel’s milk then I wrote you the wrong poem and I’m sorry, but I need to write this stuff down too once in a while

On Monday morning’s commute the city
stumbles blindly, head down,
eyes never adjusting to the lingering darkness,
pale face turned yearningly skywards,
knowing the sun won’t come
for at least another hour

Yesterday I saw Jana window shopping
on her way to evening mass
snowflakes rested on the tips of her hair -
I wanted to reach out and touch them
but I didn’t because I knew
it would only complicate the situation

By Wednesday the clock on the square reads twenty below,
my apartment ran out of hot water last night
and some buildings on my street
have not had heat for three days;
a homeless family is camping out in my stairwell
because it’s warmer there than on the street

On Saturday I walk to the market, where
the vendors have wrapped themselves in carpets
and covered their produce with blankets;
they try lighting candles to stop the lettuces
from freezing
but still the leaves snap when I touch them

I pay seven dollars for an imported avocado
because in Tanzania winters never happened
and on Saturdays we used to pick fresh avocados
from a tree in my neighbor’s garden,
and my Monday commute meant
a ten-minute walk beside the Indian Ocean -
so seven dollars seemed a small price to pay
for that memory -
besides, one of my students asked me last week
if I had ever tasted an avocado,
because she had seen one
in the market for the first time
and wanted to know what it should taste like

and when I see her on Monday I can tell her
that in Kazakhstan the avocados taste of winter