Ripped from the Headlines

Glasnost and Perestroika — that’s the old thinking.
This is the time of the weakened ruble and diminished expectations:
Fortunate, the market for Russian brides has not abated.
Welcome, my dear. I have imagined a Russian doll something like you:
your odd shape, your Eastern beauty, your mystique
which we market in our Russian way as, “in the eye of the beholder”
though your layers lie on the outside
and contain, perhaps, layer upon layer of lies.
You promise to love me and I am ready to bite —
us men, the eyes always have it,
especially the eye of the mind, so easy to fool.
I imagined you into being,
but at what cost to myself?