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The children playing with plastic guns in and around my building, crouching on the gritty stairway. Cardboard boxes they put down on the stoops when the ice was thick and slick as all hell. I walk through the Russian school yard--concrete with hopscotch--and yesterday they were jumproping; everyones changed into light blue uniforms because of spring time. The letters painted on the ground in the schoolyard are Russian.

Linda Oppen: relationships are a culture. They come with norms. I think I have so long wished for what Christians find in Jesus--constant company, someone who understands my mind. Infidelity is just one example of what did not make sense to me: this is the person who knows you best, right? This is the person you can tell anything to. But that's not the case. There are always things you don't say. All that compartmentalizing. "Putting order to things is something I try desperately to do." Receipts. Spreadsheets.

I think of Pshemeck in Siberia ovr 4 years ago, telling me someday you may want a good father for your children, then later, perhaps you will want a man who is a good lover.

The sky retracts.