Letting his picture look straight into me
I answer to this Russian English bloke
confused and hounded by a history
horrifically interesting. Joke
however much you want. We know his tale
and his nonsense travail. And yet I can
sense in his stories some superb betrayal
of this supremely documented man.
These writings don’t fit him. Too tight. Too loose.
Too cut from unreal cloth of otherwhere
to clothe this real man with real thin hair.
To me he’s just his stories and their ruse
beggaring biography. He is the laugh
of his first English book’s last paragraph.
—A. Z. Foreman
A. Z. Foreman is a linguist, poet, short story author, and translator currently pursuing a doctorate at Ohio State University.