mmdcclxiv

Laminated Pig

Greetings, beneficiary!
There’s the “ick” of St.
Petersburg. And then
there’s the “ugh” of St.
Petersburg. Lucy lives
in St. Petersburg, but
she is not to be confused
with that person in the
sky with diamonds. No,
but she has immeasurable
amounts of gold. Scads of
it. During the warm season,
and sometimes during the
not-so-warm seasons,
the gold cascades down
the mountaintops that
surround Lucy’s daringly
hip (for Russia, you know)
mansion. So, yes, lots of
gold. Urp! And lots of
icky sky. Ugh! But the
golden icing on the peaks
of the summits surround-
ing her dainty mansion,
and the gold itself, seem
to be the only pollution
in Russia’s Amsterdam
(however, I will always
prefer Venice). The pol-
lution wraps the city into
a singularity, so it can be
stuck into a sentence all
the more disgustingly,
all the more gaudily,
with the common sway
of the boughs, the overly-
ornate parlor parquetry,
the kitchen cabinets that
are so often open, hanging
limply like lower parts of
the human body around
a broken bone, a leg bone,
say, as it sways ever so slight

ly, to and fro (for purposes of
this missive, we can deny
the pain of it all; there’s
enough in the beautifully
warped city of St. Peters-
burg, whose inhabitants
seem endlessly enraptured
by the sunken rooms in
their own homes; rooms
we’d probably call dens.
In fact, “Down with dens!”
is the somewhat unofficial
motto of the city of
St. Petersburg. A den
with an extra e is of course
Eden, after all.) And always
he sways and she sways,
in unison, in solidarity, it
seems with the boughs
and the buroughs. He
sways, she sways. And do
I ever love it when you sway
on your uniquely bland (for
St. Petersburg, anyway)
porch-swing in the
indelibly heartwarming
city of St. Petersburg, Russia.