For my mother
And other Russian women,
Whose songs I hear,
Whose thoughts I speak,
Whose dreams I dream

Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry

Grand Jete Pas De Chat

... Something smelled peculiar, her face wash or her night cream. He asked why she hadn't mentioned it to him that they'd had a position open—he could've applied. She coiled from his words, retreated into the bathroom, pumping more lotion on her hands, rubbing circles over her small wrists and running her petal-like fingers up and down her elbows. She had finally emerged from the bathroom, wearing nothing but a polka-dot thong ... » read more

Published in Nantahala 4.1

In The Wrong Time

... They turned and began to walk away. He almost sank to his knees then, weak, still trembling from the excitement of meeting his people, at the prospect of finally having some friends, getting close to someone other than the single pillow on his floor mattress and the volume of Pushkin poetry he read every night, and the instant loss of it all, and the emptiness that had struck him in the chest afterward. “Don’t go,” he mumbled to their backs. “Please, don’t go.” ... » read more

Published in Talking River 23 (2008): 20-29.

A Matter of Hydraulics

... She remembers him saying that sometimes cheating was the only way to stay married, to survive the boredom of family life, that a man was like a boat that needed to be in the water from time to time, to sail with the wind. Sex was simply a matter of hydraulics. She shrugged. She wouldn’t know. She is not a man ... » read more

Published in Feminist Studies 33.2 (2007): 301-308.

Evidence of Absence

... The word. It gets out. And she can’t bring it back... Because back is where her eyes avoided his, in the onerous privacy of her office cluttered with books, papers, photographs of her family and posters of Mayakovskiy disguising pipe leaks in the walls. Because back is when his hand landed on her shoulder, squeezing it with teenage impatience and lustful urge ... » read more

Published in Nimrod 50.2 (2007): 30-39.

Plov

... Checheno-Ingushetia was no different and sought freedom and independence but had been denied both. The rebels formed groups and broke into shops, restaurants, houses. Men were killed, women raped and killed. Girls disappeared. Mothers tried to keep their children off the streets and out of the schools. Cars blew up, banks, theatres. Pogroms ensued ... » read more

Published in Del Sol Review 14 (Spring 2007).

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