By Marina Vladova
My father’s mother
perpetually on edge—no, enraged
kept tiny painted figurines
captive—groupings in a veneered vitrine
young porcelain couples held
court in lustrous glaze
and a coach drawn by
four white horses tried
whisking a lady away—
It was hot being ten & holed
up in my grandfather’s chair
that summer with stink
of valerian & kvass
she paced & perspired pulling wildly
on her dressing gown—
submerged, my eyes fixed on her droplets
I was listening to Mick & Keith
I was waiting on a friend
I waited for a knight to come
Down below across the boardwalk
where old men played dominoes,
her husband abstracted
himself against sun-filled stones
lining pungent salty waters
saltier than the Black Sea now
ashen but once billowing before me
where light beamed from
strawberries & tomatoes sliced
by grandmothers for small
errant children hell-bent
on offering themselves to waves
beckoning Innocents & Ottomans—
Where I once stood knees deep
in awe of my father who
withstood beatings from his mother
my father who would steady me
—the two of us gazing at what floated inland—
sussing out bandaids from prophecies.
Now patches of the city grow dark—fear deepens
an elevator stops dead in its tracks—
but the Son of Sam doesn’t kill tonight—
& my father’s mother has settled in
Marina Vladova was born in Odesa, Ukraine and grew up in Ohio where she taught high school English. She finds herself thinking about gooseberries and writing about resettlement and migratory loss. Her work as a narrative medicine interventionist integrates poetry & storytelling into clinical settings. She also teaches a humanities capstone at a Northeast Ohio medical school. Marina has lived in Washington, D.C., New York, London, and Portland, and her work has appeared in Interview, Surface, Big Magazine, and Muse. Marina holds an M.Ed and an MPH, and this fall she’ll teach an MFA internship course called, ‘The Stories We Tell: Creative Writing in the Sphere of Public Health’ as part of NEOMFA (the Northeast Ohio MFA consortium).
