Eponin

Eponin was born in a black back room in 1962,
post-war soldiers became her fathers,
she'd yell a hearty hullo while chasing hoops,
knees like cobblestones
and skeleton bones
short skirts and her smokey purple eyes too,
she refused to give directions
but was happy to tell you what to do,

Eponin saved my life on the River Danube
when the fire began to crawl,
she spit on my wounds
to soothe the pain
and slept with her tiny fist cupped 'round my burned balls,

They told me she lost her mind
on a mountain in the Urals,
a half-finished old-war mural was all they could find that remained
of her name
on a wall
in downtown Moscow,
some say she made it here to there
in a year
but no one can tell me exactly how.

TA