Matthew Konstantinovsky

Nothing particular happened at dinner.
The echoing thrushes sang for their lives.
Someone whose opinion the author valued
Persuaded him to stop offending God.

How much of a tale is true doesn't matter
As long as we persist in telling stories
About which tales are true and which tales are false,
Proclaimed Father Matthew Konstantinovsky,

An uncouth religious fanatic of sorts,
Depending on whose version of the story
One credits. Credit. All culture inheres
In that pure term of Indo-European

Pain and etymology, or, if you like,
Within its old Germanic synonym, trust.
I believe you. I believe in you. I trust
Your story is true, and by virtue of trust,

Credit, belief, honor, cooperation,
I expect you to acknowledge my bared throat.
I listen to you. I lend you my ears. Why
This should constitute a gift is the secret

Behind the meaning of stories as story.
One censor wrote that Gogol was "taking arms
Against immortality." Prophetic ghost,
Gogol proved the censor wrong by dying first.

First, Father Matthew made certain he had burned
All that he had written about the mortgaged
Souls of perished serfs preserved on census rolls
In the crazed hope of saving Mother Russia.

No one saves a metaphor. No metaphor
Imagines its own salvation. This is not
A story. I refuse to write a story.
Stories are dead souls hungry ghosts must mortgage.