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In the Movie Version

Raisa Gorbachev & Olga Havel share a wary lunch
in the Russian Tea Room. 

Olga’s white-straw hair grown back.
Raisa’s radiant smile returned.

They play themselves; they do not quote
their husbands. 

Olga does not say: Hope is not prognostication.
But of death: Just another darkness.

Neither pours tea.   

Olga wears jeans, a baggy cardigan,
old espadrilles with socks.  

Raisa, the plush weave of Pierre Cardin & pearls.
Olga, in her straightforward way, says:

The freedom to have sex with anyone was
one of the few freedoms the Czechs enjoyed. 

Raisa asks Olga if she's grown accustomed
to being alone.

We knew that at any moment, the police might come
and set our house on fire.

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Joan E. Bauer is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Fig Season (Turning Point, 2023), The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2021), and The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Recent work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream and Chiron Review. For some years, she was a teacher and counselor and now divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.