Carol Coffee Reposa

Carol Coffee Reposa

At the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Its lemon-tinted rooms house objects made

For dreams no one escapes:  grand dukes and czars

Exalted, brutalized in marble, bars

And epaulettes like claws.  Their contours fade

To icy slush while three young orphans paid

In kopecks drag a troika stuffed with jars

Of water up a hill against faint stars,

Frail human livestock in thin coats.  But jade

And rubies round her neck, across the hall

A plump pink countess smoothes her satin gown,

Expecting some new beau.  She combs her hair

And poses for her portrait, unaware

Of all the warnings, her days soon to drown

In flame and blood, Rasputin on the wall.