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Akhmatova, her first piece of poetry
a name chosen and grown into, like a dress.
Peeping in the mirror, she adopted herself –

a soft blue girl with clear eyes,
with everything yet to be. A mind full
of stars, in the shaded sky above the Neva.

All the muscle and music of her words
coalesce into her image in my mind, she
breathes out longing on the glass (O Anna

somewhere there were ballrooms,
whirling skirts, then somewhere else
a red coat, gunshots, prints on snow)

Anna, that morning you chose your name
did you know it would become the icy sky
above the city; the gleam on the river,

the stars above the Neva, and the gardens,
the children in the streets, the tasselled treetops?
A country lost under a freezing sky,
and glimpsed between the arches of your name.