JENEVA STONE
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Cold War

the Russian in my freshman dorm throws a party: black and red creped pictures of Leonid paternal head of the Empire (evil) take darts, acrid wafts of iced vodka sift through the gulag of the hall—Fuck him fuck Brezhnev like he fucked us, Dmitri shouts in smeared English thrusting up his cup of vodka, drops spatter the ceiling sprinkle the rest of us gaping wide with holy fucking libation, free so free—

oh, Brezhnev is dead, lion of Oz face collapsed, crinkled
in a red-frilled bier, a baked pater burst by rebel Afghans,
pegged blind by Groucho Marx eyebrows—

Karsten with his black-checked kaffiyah coiled politic around his American neck against the cold—his father reports on Israel Jordan West Bank—kissing him is precarious sport: all or nothing—on the bed in my dorm room his torso is hairless, smooth shaved for swim team, my fingers stick and slip on the rubbery chlorine feel of his milk in coffee skin—

oh, Reagan rides the sine curve of the economy
the polls up and down and up, spine whipped in rodeo
frenzy, head stiffened thrown back ecstatic—

tonight, though, in the empty hall, fluorescent light gray and stale, I will not let him in—we argue: my willful ignorance of politics, the Middle East, the Soviets, South Africa, this monologue of oppression finds a point: the lobotomized jackhammer of tyranny, the frustration of the masses: keep sticking your head in the sand, but don’t call me when the Nazis break down—I stick out my tongue, slam the door—

oh, Reagan and Thatcher are lovers of freedom—
they pop the top off (oh glee and giggles) the Soviets:
Russia springs out, coiled fabric snake in a tin—

another semester and I’m still learning about cock—diagonal ridge fingered beneath denim, thick stem in my hand—Bill and I drive up to Texas Falls through whorish colors of New England autumn—park, cross the footbridge over the falls’ drop, off the trail nature girl and boy the leaves are inconvenient against bare skin, trees rise from their silos behind Bill's face fading into early stars—but no moon—

oh, Ron dreams he still swims the Rock River larger than
lifeguard of Lowell Park saving seventy-seven, but for the girls
no whiff of menace that gives a thrill—doll grin, poor neutered Ken—

we panic now dissolved in dark toward the roar of water away from the bears I mention bears are back in range—his voice goes high he needs to pee, wanders off shouting he will save us, find a place to ford this river—I follow my cowboy’s cracking steps he is running from the bears, we are running from imaginary bears though we don’t know that now, propelled toward the sweet corrosive smell of gasoline or jet fuel, warm safety of the car—

oh, Ronnie, his slick coif flying back like Flash Gordon,
pockets destruction, cylinders bare against his thigh—
but all we girls can do is sigh, oh daddy do it
safe, oh daddy please free me, please do—