Daydreams of Putin

I hid behind sunglasses,

when tears pushed through

I thought of Vladimir Putin shirtless.

My thoughts were cloaked,

but I’m not so sure she didn’t guess. I wondered

what dreams the Russian president let go,

if he made mixed tapes

for American presidents

but kept them for himself,

if he saw Chechnya as a metaphor

for some recurrent heartbreak.

My thoughts bent around

cheap plastic rims, back

to the problems I’d been avoiding:

there was no outcome I could label success.

She was my Chechnya.