The golden wheat of the Ukraine
rots in a packed-to-the-brim silo.
Nearby, a Chekist bashes the brain
of a Kulak, as in a sideshow
historians agree to forget.

Tomorrow his gaunt wife will feed
her drumstick children acacia flowers
or sparrows crushed beneath her feet.
The following day she’ll beg the powers-
that-be for a stale loaf of bread.

And the day after that she’ll lie
cradling moons. Among the rich,
she will not feel starvation’s bite,
nor Lazar’s wrath inside the ditch
with the forsaken and the dead.