The Fisherman and the Golden Fish

Because I have settled in the far north of Russia
where the snow itself breathes in the absence
of any real plant life and drifts grow
from the pavement like cells multiplying,

it is late April and still no sign of thaw.
The city's only color - green swirls
in the gauze skirts of gypsies who jostle
for money at the doorway of Finland Station,
where Lenin still scowls at the people in line,
waiting….always waiting.

To escape the dreariness, my six year old and I
join the Saturday throngs on the sagging metro,
exit at the station that collapsed into the oozing earth,
where the bones of countless peasants lie.
Then board a bus to the next station,
as accepting of this fate as any Russian.

We trudge on to the Pushkin Children's Theater.
The air heavy with unwashed wool and mud-caked boots.
Where once Young Pioneers waved small red flags
in the years before Perestroika, now the empty plaza
planted with the grey slush that carpets
the streets for months at a time.

Every day I write lists of words I don't know,
tear them into scraps, thrust them under my tongue
for safekeeping, until they spill over my body,
coating my limbs like shimmering scales.

The curtain opens and women in blue
flutter chiffon scarves. Sway of their torsos,
the in and out of waves. Lulled by the rhythm,
we can almost taste the spray, feel the warmth,
now as foreign to us Californians as we
ourselves are here to the native born.

The fisherman casts his net on the water
and it expands with sea-slime, while a swell
of violins imitate the metronome of the waves.
Again he casts and the strings tumble with seaweed.
I watch my daughter for signs of confusion.
Instead her face fills slowly with pleasure.

Casting a third time, he pulls in a golden fish
that begs for freedom, promising to grant his wish.
The fisherman untangles her from the meshes,
releases her with a gentleness unknown in his life.
Returning to his wife, he explains the great wonder:
The golden fish speaks our language!

This worthless bundle of rags could not
be my husband, the wife thinks in kind.
Her screams darken the air into a swarm of locusts.
The story familiar: the greedy old wife
scolding her husband's foolishness.

My daughter, oblivious to her poor
comprehension, clings to this story,
eagerly embracing an impossible reality.
Seduced by the fishwife's new
sable-trimmed jacket, the brocaded dress
heavy with pearls. Yet she pities the old man
who succumbs to his wife's demands.
As I do, if only in this life.

^

Biography

Carol V. Davis lives in Los Angeles, California, USA. Her work has been published in literary journals in the US, Ireland, and Israel and anthologies, including Nice Jewish Girls, (Plume/Penguin, 1996). Awards include The Reuben
Rose Award (Jerusalem) and 2nd prize in the Strokestown International Poetry Award (2000). She spent the 1996-97 academic year as a senior Fulbright scholar in St. Petersburg, Russia, teaching at Petersburg Jewish University. Her collections are Letters from Prague (1991) and It's Time to Talk About...,
(1997), published in Russia in a bilingual edition.