(For Russians)

Living in the Pole of Cold wasn’t the worst thing.
Temperatures could reach the seventies
if you knew Fahrenheit
– which, if you lived in Siberia,
you didn’t –
but it was once clocked at under seventy below, Celsius.
That’s cold.
Tatiana knew she’d have to get out.

She had friends in Oymyakon
of course
and she’d miss them
but she could stuff all the people she loved
in one floor of her apartment complex
and if doing that would let her escape town,
she’d do it
at heartbeat speed.

She didn’t know what she could do
out in the greater world
but she knew she would figure it out
once she was in a place
where summers didn’t last for seven weeks.
She needed to come in out of the cold
somehow.

When she found the job
she took it right away
and has not yet looked back.
She thinks of her old life
sometimes
and smiles, warm
in her memories
but also because she can remember
from great distance
and from within a jacuzzi.