Vera Beneath the Floor

I still hear the voice of Vera beneath the floor

her mind gone

remembering her childhood

in the marketplace

as she called people cheats and bastards

watering down the kvass

and sleeping against the side of a church.

My own childhood in the Bible belt

stealing quarters from phone booths

and beneath the vending machines running

to the laundromat to play Tetris, a game

invented in that godless country

where you shape pieces

until they fit together

and once they find each other

they disappear.