Steven Carter

November 1991

. . . Sitting in the upstairs Café Unia in Lublin, Poland, watching the first snowflakes fall; scribbling postcards to the USA; nursing and being nursed by a hideous Polish beer called Biast.

. . . Conscious of certain things – events, potential events, loneliness swirling around me like the blizzard about to hammer southeast Poland. And Chernobyl, 400 miles away. Do I have duct tape for my apartment windows? Iodine for the thyroid?

Then, from downstairs (the café is part of a hotel), the shouts of Russian and Polish whores.

Then, giggles.

rising wind;
down the street
mini-cathedral;
on the cobblestones,
penitents on their knees