Bodega | Historicity

The night was one among many, creeping through the blackout curtains
percolating against chicory on the balcony. The sun still getting ready.

You have learned to move so quietly here, morning shade of dawn.
Page of a book turned by wind. You’ve been dreaming in French again,
the fantasy where you understand others. It’s not that you keep to yourself,

but rather nowhere will take you. Maybe language is better left to the birds.
Save the many places inside yourself for silence to settle. Your exception was Riga

where your body bent to song. Made praise the cold beet soup in Bastejkalna Parks.
Made peace along Aleksandra Čaka iela with a gift of tomatoes from your cousin.

There, the pavement seduced your shadow. There, the dill met well the cream.
You were one among many, stranger and yet not strange, Latvian even

if you could not say your own name. Maybe the language is better left
to the ghost of your grandmother’s tongue. Her memory like a crystal vase
in which all the flowers wither. What if history were just a pronoun

for what you needed her to be? Center to pull your water, face to show your face.
A city you could walk after dark. Not because it’s safe, but because it’s alive.

135 – April 2024

By Ryan Dzelzkalns

Historicity