Natasha in a Mellow Mood

(apologies to Bullwinkle and Rocky)

Boris, Dahlink, look

at my legs, long

as a lonely evening in Leningrad,

how they open the air

when I walk, the way moonlight

opens the dark. Boris, my hair

is so black with espionage,

so cool and quiet with all those secrets

so well kept—those secret plans

you’ve nearly kissed

into my ears. Who gives a proletarian

damn about Bullwinkle and that

flying squirrel and that idiot

who draws us? America

is a virgin, the cartoonist who leaves me

less than a Barbie doll under

this dress, who draws me

with no smell—he is a virgin.

the children who watch us

every Saturday mornink

are virgins. Boris, my sweet waterbug, I

don’t want to be a virgin anymore.

Look into my eyes, heavy

with the absence of laughter

and the presence of vodka. Listen

to my Russian lips muss up

these blonde syllables of English:

Iwantchu. Last night

I dreamed you spelled your

code name on my shoulder

with the waxed sprigs of your

moustache. I had just come

out of the bath. My skin was still

damp, my hair poured like ink

as I pulled the comb through it. Then

I heard you whisper, felt you take

my hand—Oh, Boris, Boris

Badenov, I want your mischief-

riddled eyes to invent

my whole body, all the silken

slopes of flesh forgotten

by the blind cartoonist. I want

to be scribbled all over you

in shapes no pencil would dare. Dahlink,

why don’t we take off

that funny little hat? Though

you are hardly tall

as my thighs, I want your pointy

shoes beside my bed, your

coat flung and fallen

like a double-agent

on my floor.



Tim Seibles

“Natasha in a Mellow Mood” is from Hurdy-Gurdy (Cleveland State University, 2004).