Hope Abandoned

by Geraldine Monk

Five decades ago I lent my
copy of Nadezhda Mandlestam’s
eponymous book detailing poets
lives lived under Stalin. Fittingly
I never saw it again. It disappeared.

Of late it’s been in my thoughts
and yet I recall virtually
nothing of it but the ghosts of
screams corkscrewing through the
Lubyanka house of tortured truth.

Oh and the little grubby nugget of how
government thugs would come and
batter down your door in the middle of
nothing in particular even though your
door wasn’t locked and all they had to do was —
knock.