I was not made to work in the fields
reaping what I sowed.
18-hour days
scythed by the Slavic children before me.
my great aunts
grandmothers
great uncles
fathers
ripped root vegetables out of the
Soviet soil so they could feed
the babes born when the first
podsnezhnik struggled out of the snow
in the ambiguity of the month of March,
which then get trampled
by a hunter’s shoe.
a beet would nourish
my father’s insolence
and a carrot would rid
my mother of her pride.
we get cranky when
we don't eat
so, we stockpile carp and perch
and now the freezer door won’t close.
my birthday cake falls out and shatters.