Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Jilka: White Nights Prelude

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White Nights Prelude
By Lucy Jilka

St. Petersburg, Russia 2006

Everything breaks down except
Rachmaninoff. Rain patterns

in pools—a crow across gray.
Low C rolls along as if

the last bell—intermittent
the toll of bones low, earthlike.

The sun spins elusive—rolls
cemetery hills the size

of children. Numbers brick up
and down the water tower.

War veterans hang medals.
A grand piano trades for

bread. Drunken eddies poison
the savior. Stalin’s circus

mortars Printimpram. The rims
of Kazan unravel. Wicks

go slowly. The sun does not
go deep enough. Everything

severed except the Neva
in agitato. Dug up

the virgin deflagrated,
her hands, her face, a girl waits

for belief, dreams in ashes,
blessed mother in the ruins

Lucy Jilka’s work has appeared in Corroboree, The Cincinnati Poet's Collective, American Voice, WordWrights, So To Speak, 580 Split, kill author and Eclectica. She holds an MFA in Poetry from George Mason University and lives and works in Washington, D.C.