Dead Letter

So, that’s done, dusted for another year.
Another snowless, so-called holy day
devoid of joy, festivity, or light,
packed away, without ceremony.

Like yours, my high-arched foot arthritic, cramps,
and I resent the stamps I can’t afford,
bemoan the hats I’ve lost, file photos old,
fold messages in pie crusts, unforward.

Address unknown. No suitcase filled with dead
son’s clothes, no crocheted doilies—useless gifts—
stitched memories for drawers, not grandchildren…
of which I’ve none. All heirlooms trapped in rift.

For ritual has given way to myth.
The last of our line to wish, cherish, our
dreams, debts, hopes die with me. Yes, I have read
all those books, Grandma. Head, too, for the pyre.

Diane G Martin is a disabled Russian literature specialist, translator, photographer, Willamette University graduate, winner of the Diana Woods Memorial Award for Creative Nonfiction, and runner-up for the Princemere Poetry Prize. She has published poetry, prose, translations, and photography in numerous literary journals from the US to the West Indies. Her poetry collection A Pilgrim’s Progress was published in 2020. She was commissioned to judge a poetry translation contest in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2021, and has published translations of three Akhmatova poems at Litera Globus, where she was interviewed for a podcast.

A long-time resident of Nevada, Oregon, San Francisco, California, Maine; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Sansepolcro, Italy, she has one daughter. Themes of exile, disability, and displacement pervade her work, which includes several collections of poetry, another of creative nonfiction, and a multi-genre memoir, as yet unpublished. Currently Diane is working on a novel set during the Siege of Leningrad.