ANECDOTE

Lenin’s body, which is located

in a mausoleum, sprouts a spongy

growth, I read in the newspaper,

a kind of fungus. In the company

of a nonsense poet, a traumatologist

by trade, I took a break from an international

poetry festival to visit a theme park surrounded

by ditches, barbed wire, and watchtowers.

With pine trees for shade, it is home

to a collection of gigantic bronze, copper,

and iron Soviet heroes, including ten

Lenins and at least one Stalin, brought together

after the implosion of the Soviet Union. A path

winds past the statues; propaganda songs

blare out over the public address

system. The spiritual father of the park,

a former wrestling champion who made a fortune post-

perestroika with the export of mushrooms

and has since been voted liberal of the year several times,

sees the park as a posthumous indictment

of the Soviet regime, a warning against

totalitarianism, a gift to future generations.

Dressed as a Red Army soldier, the guide drew

our attention to a twenty-foot statue of Lenin,

arm raised, but missing a thumb.

Some birds had built a nest on it.

The idea behind the park arose during a visit

to a factory, on whose vast floor the liberal

of the year saw a broken-off head of Stalin

and found it enthralling (he said in an interview).

While I was waiting at the counter

of the souvenir shop to pay for a Lenin mug,

the nonsense poet told me an anecdote

about a sculptor who made a statue of Lenin

with a hat on and a hat in one hand, a sculpture

that cost him his life.