It is a sovereign nation as the sky is large. I write in the haze of alleged safety,
June being never-night.
The attachment of cell phones to the belt and new umbrellas over empty cafe tables
is read as progress. Billboards are few and feature Estonian beer. Here, a blond man
without a shirt sweats for the company owned by Swedes. Wet glass appeal, his capitalism
reaches toward a nation of leaning, of platform shoes on cobblestones, drunk on miniskirts.
"Do not go to bars alone where you might get hurt or worse yet, die."
Museum labels peel away from the wall and I strain to read the history of social realism
as some light bulbs are out, my perspective growing dim.
Roads spread legibly out from The Old City into block apartment buildings
of plastic perforated shoes, Russian. Her bunions and lack of citizenship, carrying a plastic bag
and a satchel made of netting, onions inside. I divert my eyes. I notice.
I did not know what to expect, going there. Except packing the proper clothes for the cool
northern weather. Finding just one guide book.
"Because of our last name it would not be safe to go back."
With water on three sides, I approach a response confused by the fact of my foreigness
yet a relationship prior to arrival--
the desire for his warmth, this nation or language.
Lined up behind a truck of provisions, women in kerchiefs turn away, protective.
For decades have been turning. I move the lens down from my face. Grey hair wisps
at our edges. They buy butter and bread or meat, freely, though expensive, and now,
since The Singing Revolution, bananas.
© Jill Magi 2005