I am not ashamed
        in these post-glasnost times
to admit that my family
        was persecuted
during the de-kulakization programs —
        the de-institutionalization of
                collectivized farming —
        of the early nineteen-thirties.
Yes, the nation was struggling
under the inherited failures
of the old socialism, but the central committee
(most historians, even apologists, agree)
reacted too radically, and
                shattered too many people’s lives.
Still, we pick up the pieces.

My uncle,
        who committed suicide —
he was probably depressed,
he drank too much,
                but who's to say —
had an illegitimate son.
At his funeral,
        when only nice words are supposed to be said,
my grandmother was wailing,
        regretting her decision
        thirty, forty years ago
        not to join the Party —
"It would have made his life easier," she said.
My father,
        an instructor at the Institute
                        of Advanced Planning,
and himself an alcoholic,
and, at the time,
        in those pre-glasnost days,
                    a candidate for the Party —
was drunk off his ass,
and kept singing
                the national anthem.
My mother kept trying to shush him,
        but she lost the will
        when she saw my uncle's body.

Why am I recounting this horrible tale?
I don’t know. It has grown on me.
It begs to be told.

At some point — and I was one of those
fortunate enough to be kicked out
of the official Union of Writers
before the writers' union ceased
to matter — I stopped rationalizing
        my sense of aesthetic —
Capitalist Realism was bullshit,
so who cares?—
                and the same was true
of Surrealism, Absurdism, Expressionism, and so forth —
I don't care why I like what I like —
I do appreciate quality —
but, for me, life is too short
        to expostulate
        to deliberate
        to contemplate —
when a lady purses her lips, begging for a kiss,
need I pause and contemplate?
No. I will kiss and kiss again.

But at that time I was
        working through my phase
of Abstract Capitalist Realism —
        it didn’t matter what Vanya and Irena
        looked like or felt like or smelled like,
only that they transcended
        into the ideal capitalist man
        and the ideal capitalist woman.
The censors didn’t like it.
"What? Here you state quite clearly
        that Irena sticks her penis,
                throbbing,
        into Vanya’s ‘open, succulent mouth.’"
"So," I replied, "What's the problem?"
"Well, first, it is petty bourgeois pornography —
and second, it does not conform to
        the guidelines for Capitalist Realism."
"Well Comrade Censor," I nodded,
"I apologize for boring you with this material —
I thought, and it seems I was wrong,
that by switching the genitalia identification
I would allow the reader
to break through anti-capitalist stereotypes —
for example, later, Vanya, feeling liberated,
buys eye shadow and more expensive cologne,
and certainly the purchase of cosmetic goods
should not be stereotyped into specific
gender roles." "I agree," he replied,
"but you cross the line against
Consumer Segregation. Vanya buying
eye shadow is a good concept —
but he needs to buy an eye shadow
marketed to men in their forties,
and quite clearly he seems to be
                buying generic eye shadow.
You need to be more specific,
        less abstruse."
"And what about the pornography?"
"It's too lame. Add a few more lines
about him licking, I mean her
licking his cunt. Make it more graphic,
more sensual, with some screaming.
I didn't really find it arousing,
but I thought the premise had potential."
I felt the censor did not understand my work —
it wasn't about screwing —
                although the official guidelines
        say that sex, adultery,
        and animal mutilation
        are especially encouraged subjects
                        for writers —
it was about transcendence.
Liberated from their traditional
        sex-driven roles,
Vanya and Irena would become better consumers:
they would no longer cherry-pick —
buying only those items that
                the state chooses to sell at a loss —
and they would feel comfortable,
        even sexual
with their credit cards —
they could even imagine —
        and I understand
        that some factions of the Party
        still want to make this widely available—
paying anonymous strangers for
                sexual gratification.
I thought, at that moment,
        that my story epitomized
                   the essence of Capitalist Realism.

There was a dark shadow in my uncle's past —
        he had declared bankruptcy —
an almost unpardonable offense.
He spent several years at reform centers —
he admitted to me once
        that he had come to loathe
        the mid-west.
But he was smart enough —
        so he was rehabilitated
and allowed to return to Florida.

Sometimes I wonder why he committed suicide —
part of me doesn’t want to know —
it is strange to think
        that people can vanish
     with a magician-like sleight
                            of hand —
and I know now that in these post-glasnost times
religions other than the state-sanctioned
capitalist-protestant-christianity
have been rehabilitated.
So its almost hip to be a
                        non-materialistic buddhist —
especially when one is a wealthy
        materialistic movie star —
     or an adherent of communalistic-spiritualistic
                roman catholicism,
        as opposed to the less concerned
                american catholicism —
     I would hate to be caught in
                the backlash —
        and there will be a backlash
when and if the Party
                returns to the hard-line —

Regardless, there are some things
which transcend even money —
at the funeral
	we were discussing my illegitimate
				cousin,
and I was thinking on my short story
	and its fate at the hands of the censors
when I looked into the casket —
my uncle's lips were pursed
	as if wanting
		to be kissed —
and I wanted to kiss him,
		instinctively,
			again and again —
but I stopped, and shuddered —
I didn’t know what to think.

But of my illegitimate cousin,
we agreed,
	to let matters lie.
The boy's mother had cuckolded
	her ex-husband,
an apparatchiki with the
	Central Florida Marketing Planning Committee
into believing that the child was his—
with luck the child would never know
that he came from a line
	of kulaks, jews, socialists,
	spiritualists, individualists, thinkers.
With luck, he too
	could become a store manager
	or overseer at a warehouse.
These are things we discussed
	while my father made an ass
			of himself
	drunk and singing the national
			anthem.

Still, it is a morbid tale,
        my uncle's funeral,
with only a handful of witnesses
        to see the casket lowered
        to hear the wails
        to confirm that the death was done.
Why do I think on this, after all of these years?—
I am not one who likes to contemplate,
but I wonder
               why
               when I wanted to kiss,
               I did not kiss. . .
It was not a question
        of Capitalist Realism, per se,
    but it was one
             of aesthetics.