![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hayes-banner.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Stella Fridman Hayes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was one with the cold \/ Moscow imparted, an import <\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR I was one with the cold \/ Moscow imparted, an import A short story by Stella Fridman Hayes<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44448,"featured_media":116185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116549,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116183\/revisions\/116549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfrom the old Soviet days \/ A mixture of mud & snow
\non my western-brand boots, \/ as deep as my animus
\nafter all these human years \/ loneliness inexpressible
\nsince we left without him \/ The hotel kept my passport
\nat the front desk. I wasn\u2019t \/ a flight risk, there, as a tourist.
\nIn love with the man I was there with\u2014his blush, his smell
\nCommingled with mine, from the night together into morning.
\nSplitting a shy moon into parts \/ married \/ not married.
\nI spent the day in our room \/ reading, waiting for him.
\nThrough the crack in the window, snow started to accumulate
\nOn the windowsill. \/ I wanted to get warm, I took the elevator
\nto the lobby. Ordered black tea \/ with lemon. It was just the two
\nof us, a tycoon du jour, at the bar \/ in a German-manufactured
\nsuit, an ironed handkerchief inside a breast pocket \/ He must have
\nslid off the rose-gold wedding ring \/ his right ring finger freed.
\nHis wife used to this when \/ he would come home. His wife
\nwho darns his socks \/ who washes by hand his underwear
\nthat dries on a short clothesline in \/ the post-communal
\nbathroom. His family \/ descendants of Bolsheviks. As we
\nlocked eyes, he sparkled like \/ the disco ball affixed to the
\nceiling in the middle of the bar \/ The mirrors, luminous
\ncelestial bodies \/ emitting & capturing light with each rotation.
\nHe smacked, rearranged his lips on the vodka \/ shot as cold
\nas snow crushed underfoot \/ Outside, a weather revolution.
\nHis perverse \/ bristling beauty. A birch forest \/ between us.
\nA grotto for Mother Russia\u2019s<\/em> beatific love \/ for her people.
\nInside, a closed ideology. I sat there locked \/ waiting for
\nsomething\u2014only Moscow<\/em> could teach me \/ Her<\/em> in 1917.
\nMurderous, revolutionary. Her<\/em> imperial seat of government.
\n(The Duma.) Her, post-revolutionary \/ where the regime\u2019s
\npoliticians (thought up) legislative deviations \/ He looked
\nlike a technocrat, descending into \/ middle age without a fight.
\nLike Anna Karenina\u2019s husband \/ Reliably unimaginative.
\nWith more money than he should \/ have gotten away with
\nstealing from the people. Vodka \/ sweat \/ swallowing up
\nhis top lip. He looked \/ like he was drowning\u2014
\nI could have followed him to his \/ room after he sent a note
\nin Russian with the waiter \/ One vodka shot & beluga
\nlike rare black diamonds \/ spinning in the crystal dish
\na small glass spoon upright \/ I could have allowed him
\nto give me pleasure \/ the Russian kind. Abundant.
\nFirm as a kulak<\/em>\u2014I could have whispered obscenities
\nin his ear, a turn-on I\u2019m sure \/ he couldn\u2019t have imagined
\nfrom a woman. I could have \/ taken $1,000 he offered
\nfor the night. The note said\u2014whatever it costs to have me,
\nhe\u2019d pay. I could have made \/ him crawl on all fours.
\nFor the surveillance crew \/ listening in on the night.
\nI could have hurt him \/ I could have cried in his chest.
\nA universal language. I learned \/ & relearned. I could do
\nit all over again with or \/ without. Human matters.
\nIn whispered desperation \/ When I saw the man
\nI loved. His lapis-lazuli eyes \/ Our night on his lips.
\nOur night turned on its head \/ Our feral love.
\nHow could anyone compete \/ My living ruin.
\nLike cells in division \/ In friction. In one person
\ndiving into another, like a blade \/ falling on a tree
\nin a forest. Papa, he could have admired you
\nstepping into your kind of valediction. He would
\nbe you. How could he compete?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hayes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Stella Fridman Hayes<\/span><\/strong> is the author of two poetry collections, Father Elegies<\/i> (What Books Press) and One Strange Country <\/i>(What Books Press). She grew up in Brovary, a suburb outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Chicago, and Los Angeles. She earned an MFA in creative writing from NYU, where she taught in the undergraduate creative writing program and served as assistant fiction editor and poetry editor of Washington Square Review.<\/i> Her work has appeared in Image<\/i>, The Recluse<\/i>, Four Way Review<\/i>, and Stanford University Press, among others. The story ‘Luda, The Girl Who Was My Best Friend’ is forthcoming in Best Microfiction 2025<\/em>. Hayes<\/span> is a contributing editor at Tupelo Quarterly. <\/i>Visit her at stellahayes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nfrom the old Soviet days \/ A mixture of mud & snow
\non my western-brand boots, \/ as deep as my animus
\nafter all these human years \/ loneliness inexpressible
\nsince we left without him…<\/p>\n