Breadcrumb #396

SHANE O'HANLON

it’s so nice to see big water

she is visiting from Berlin
sans coast or horizon
but before she lived in Petersburg
where on weekends they would go to the gulf
there was horizon
but first, she was from The North
from a place that no-one ever heard of
called Archangelsk
like, Archangel
her eyes are deep black pools trembling moonlight

it is near the White Sea that freezes over
but special boats can cut through the ice
there are bears there, she says, now
grinning like a school girl
pointing at a horse shoe crab
what is that?

she is my stepsister’s visitor
I have brought her to the sound
it is springtime
pollen streams from the bluffs thick as snow
a young couple takes a selfie
near the giant sleeping moss rocks
the sea rolls it’s shoulders on the shore
familiar rhythm the crests the rise and fall
In Germany they think we are idiots
familiar rhythm

recently she went back to her old home in The North
the people there have good character
but only see from their tiny perspective
now she sees wide like horizon
and that is why she stays in Berlin
despite feeling a bit off  
like in Soviet Russia
now rising to ExPat fervor
her power overwhelms me
when there used to be big department stores that sold many different things and each section would have different counters where they would give you a piece of paper and, so as not to lose a spot, your mother would leave you in the cashier line while she went around to gather the paper orders from the various counters to be brought back to you in the main line but standing there, and you can ask anyone who lived in Soviet times and they will tell you the same, you would be so terrified as the line moved that you would reach the cashier before your mother got back and they would ask you to pay up

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