In a hotel in Tashkent
the Latvian delegate from Riga
was sucking his fishbones
as a Chukwu woman with hands as hot as mine
caressed my knee beneath the dinner table
her slanted eyes were dark as seal fur
we did not know each other’s tongue.
“Someday we will talk through our children”
she said
“I spoke to your eyes this morning
you have such a beautiful face”
thin-lipped Moscow girls translated for us
smirking at each other.
And I had watched her in the Conference Hall
ox-solidblack electric hair
straight as a deer’s reinfire-disc eyes
sweeping over the faces
like a stretch of frozen tundra
we were two ends of one taut rope
stretched like a promise from her mouth
singing the friendship song
her people sang for greeting
There are only fourteen thousand of us left
it is a very sad thingit is a very sad thing
when any peopleany peopledies
“Yes, I heard you this morning”
I saidreaching out from the place where we touched
poured her vodkaan offering
which she accepted like roses
leaning across our white Russian interpreters
to kiss me softly upon my lips.
Then she got up and left
with the Latvian delegate from Riga.