WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | collection Welcome To The Real World ← 15 of 59 → | home        

Glasnost, 1993

Katerina (dark and pretty,
fiery-eyed and twenty-something)
used to be a dancing teacher
under state control. 

Now she’s free to make her choices,
circulates with business contacts
and in basques of shiny satin
bares more than her soul. 

With a dancer’s graceful moves she
takes off every item till with
legs spread for inspection all her
assets can be seen, 

but in her thoughts (her one remaining
private place) reflects that this is
not exactly what she hoped that
openness would mean.

Glasnost is a Russian word meaning "openness", much used in the media in the years immediately before the collapse of communism in 1989.