Russian reminds me
of Connecticut.
Of winter. My first
university, the drive
all cold glass and snow,
the car heater humming
a song I didn’t know.

They say it’s easier
to express yourself
in a second language.
It was true for me,
that winter, garbling
my English, tongue
and teeth proficient
only in the neat rows
of Cyrillic, по-русски:¹
П
          Ц
                    Й²
as I memorized
the alphabet rote.

I streamed Russian radio
when I drove. The beat
of the commercials was
fast but still somehow
comforting, all the words
I didn’t yet understand
the answer to a question
I didn’t know to ask:
yes, there’s more
to the world than this.

Не надо бояться.³

                      Don’t be afraid.

But I was. The sky was gray
and the forecast gloomy.
The host intoned a question,
I could tell by his voice,
but the one I wanted to answer
was something else entirely,
lost in ribbons of snow
beyond my windshield:

Are you okay?

In Russian I wouldn’t lie.

          Не знаю, не знаю.⁴

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