[Section 7 of 200 introduces Kseniya and Zhenya, characters who will henceforth loosely guide this long episodic poem, like psychopomps, through its grim yet frivolous purgatorial landscape of political intrigue and social decay. The pair are introduced here as a fictionalized caricature of the Russian hookers who allegedly peed on Trump. The name ‘Kseniya’ is a Russian version of Greek ‘Xenia’, meaning foreigner or lover of foreigners; Zhenya is a common Slavonic diminutive of ‘Evgenia’, meaning pure in race. Although they act like sisters, these characters are thus also tacit representatives of the two sides that divide a world riven by identity politics. Both names are common sobriquets for Eastern European sex workers.
I should warn readers that this section of the poem necessarily contains much vulgar sexually explicit language and dark political satire, which may not be to everyone’s taste. I both apologize and do not apologize for that. The section is divided into four subsections entitled ‘Foreplay’, ‘Eye’, ‘Bar’ and ‘Date.’]
Foreplay
Kseniya and Zhenya’s dulled eyes
have been in the business for a long while now,
but they know how to put on a good show
in a hotel room, on the dark net, down there.
“Whatever Master want,” they coo,
flirting fleetingly, like serfs
through meth-damaged teeth.
“You want us dress up like schoolgirl,
pee on you, pretend we twins. We do.
Can’t show pussy juice
on US Internet? Russia free country.
Yes. You pay, we do that here for you too.”
*
Eye
Kseniya lounges back on the ambassador-
sized bed, smoking an Embassy and
watching a National Geographic Channel documentary
about extremophiles.
She thumbs herself distractedly. “That creep
didn’t get me anywhere near,” she laughs.
Zhenya touches up her mascara in the hotel mirror.
“They’re probably still filming us”, she notes,
blinking a little foreign matter out of one watery eye.
“Whatever,” Kseniya replies, looking up at the webcam
in the whirling fan over the bed,
sticking out her tongue
and waggling it about.
*
Bar
Kseniya picks the olive with a toothpick
out of her third straight gin, chewing
thoughtfully on it. “Love and peace!”
she blurts out. “You what?” Zhenya snaps back,
one eye firmly on a guy on the other side of the bar
giving her that look. “We do diplomacy,” Kseniya
goes on. “While guys play their games with guns
and bombs, we work with kisses and piss like UN
whores, with no limits and no borders, just
to keep peace.” Kseniya concludes.
“Shut the fuck up, Ksusha,” Zhenya
shoots back. “You don’t half talk a lot of crap
when you’re pissed.” “Like Florence Nightingale,”
Kseniya dribbles on into her half-empty glass,
as Zhenya marches off across the bar in pursuit of prey.
*
Date
“Do you think I’m pretty?” Zhenya, already naked,
and high, talks into the mirror, as the secret policeman
she has just snared, struggles clumsily to peel off
his jeans on the hotel bed. “Yeah,” he grunts over her ass.
“I mean really pretty,” Zhenya insists, eyeing him
backwards through the dressing table’s mirrored glass.
“Fuck yes!” is the best he can come up with.
“I could be a movie star,” Zhenya goes on. “Sure.
Yes you could,” soldier boy pants, as Zhenya
eyes him pityingly with curled ironic lips,
a twinkle of cynicism sparking in her dark
dilated pupils meeting his.
Poetry, Politics & Language 