Absent Goods - edit

[dukealien]

edit;

I used to wonder, hypothetically,
how it must be to live, a Communist,
or as a Russian proletarian
today, accustomed to the empty shelves
of stores where all was scarcity and dust.

Last week I found out from experience
of visiting my local grocery
where much was missing, racks nude, shelves unstocked
because of snow and ice:  trucks had not come.

I only found a little gourmet food
for proletarians had been there first
and bought the rest to feed their families
back home on frozen, white-encrusted streets.

---

Last stanza edited for a little more image/drama(?) and a vague connection via weather.

The set up was nice, but the ending wasn't really a twist.
The proles buying the gourmet stuff would've been a nice irony.

I don't think the Russians are doing that badly. They have everything they need from the country that actually makes everything.

Your last line is  eloquently ambiguous - is the country that makes everything China (which supplies Russia, for a price) or Russia itself if only it had a mechanism to decide what was actually needed/wanted among all its potential, and distribute it?  Hard crony capitalism (oligarchy) isn't working much better for them  than totalitarian cronyism (Communism as practiced) did.