THE STATUE OF ANNA AKHMATOVA
Barry Dempster, twice nominated for the Governor General’s Award, is the author of 16 collections of poetry, two volumes of short stories, two novels, and a children’s book. He won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry in 2005 for his book The Burning Alphabet. In 2010 and 2015, he was a finalist for the Ontario Premiers Award for Excellence in the Arts.
I find Anna Akhmatova
in St. Petersburg,
measuring the phrase,
the black ice of death
across the river from Kresty
Prison. She leans back against
what could be a gravestone,
arms folded beneath her breasts,
her legs stretched out, resting
on her heels. She’s watching boats
disintegrate on the river,
their oiliness like drowned prisms.
She’s wearing a stone dress with wide
sleeves – stone face, stone eyes.
If there is flesh behind her lips,
it’s sealed by the salt of years
and the spasms of things
never written down. I bend my knees
just a little, ask Carol to take a picture
that I’ll add to my tatty photo album
with shots of me snuggled up
to Brecht in Berlin and Neruda in Valparaiso,
one more riddle
for eventual dementia to solve.
Barry Dempster, twice nominated for the Governor General’s Award, is the author of 16 collections of poetry, two volumes of short stories, two novels, and a children’s book. He won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry in 2005 for his book The Burning Alphabet. In 2010 and 2015, he was a finalist for the Ontario Premiers Award for Excellence in the Arts.