Daily Routine

BY AYLEEN CAMERON

He stood on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul as a young man:

thin-shouldered, gangly arms tucked behind his back,

he flashed an apricot smile in the summer air

The same man now trembles beside me using a skinned branch as a walking stick

he lives with his delusions and we have to live with him

I can’t say good morning to him without suffocating

August heat leaves him frail and shrunken under his sun hat

he tells me there are two moons in the sky

I brought pieces of them back to Earth, he says

We shuffle round and round the cul de sac

it doesn’t matter how they begin, because our conversations all end the same way:

Did they get the trees I sent back to Bishkek?

My skin is blistering from heat when I lead him home

when I look at him all I see is the glassy flesh around his eyes

and his hollow pupils

I sit him down in front of Channel One

and he asks, Did Stalin receive my letter?

he doesn’t notice when I start crying

I tell him yes.

Daily Routine - by Ayleen Cameron