This is not the breadbasket
nor the orchard
of our country
this is the smelter
we are spread here
smeared over snowfields
like sump-oil,
slid inside animal skins for warmth
valenki boots for transport
to the motherland’s lode
where we melt stones each day
to feed her.
You’ll notice, as visitors
that we scurry with purpose
and little choice
for its cold
and has always been that way
you see
we were taught smelting
as infants
stoked adolescent furnaces
as we played with ourselves
and swelled our own value
to the common as muck good.
We are the biggest.
there is no smelter
in the world
can match ores,
nickel, red earth
low life span,
high products and stacks of them
coughing their own clouds
in climatic dumplings
just airborne enough
to clog a low sun
Here we have poisoned trees
in the tundra
taproots of icicled black plants
our grandfathers, the great ones sowed
forming a blocked, steaming city
not a little unlike your
New York New York
Norilisk Norilisk
we wheeze to ourselves
through furry lungs
as we vie , a quiet smelting people
for streetstall fish caught
in sick coloured waters.
(our giant freezer
keeps them stiff as spears)
Leisure, you ask?
Well the men have huge fox hats
and are well endowed with patience
the women wide hips and great gashes
of splashed carmine lipstick
you can see coming for many blocks
in this monochrome city.
In summer we fish or fuck
and in winter there’s no fishing.