Six poems

Translated from Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella & Dzvinia Orlowsky

the self 

it was so hot

even coolness in relationships was welcome

before taking its leave, summer squeezed from us our final juices

melted us down into something else, not necessarily better

this body no longer inspires me to trust

but no one can replace it for me, a body is a body

sometimes the world is limited by the brim of a sun hat

by the space between breasts, knees on the horizon

I don’t see you, my body, I’m focusing farther out

where the sea barely breaks at the edges

like pursed lips, reminding us the earth is round

there are things you must believe, even if you don’t experience them for yourself:

solid and hollow body physics

the mechanics of internal upward motion, optics of illumination

we’ve still never finished a summer reading list,

something’s always seemed extraneous, outdated, not to our taste

summer’s last cricket finds my first deep wrinkle

and settles in forever

there’s no getting away from its high-frequency sound

dear body of mine, we’ve passed a critical point

we’re headed in the direction of increasing discomfort:

crazed disco at the beach, the annoying shrieks of other people’s children

prickly sand under my suit,

the sea pounds its wager

that we’ll never come back here again

as we are  never again

as we are

***

I found the strength

not to pay tribute to memory

to speak of the dead in the future tense

dig up the root of evil from the reality in my head

it says: my tongue, my jarlig—golden horde of words

we’re connected by DNA, no matter how you dissect it

your rise and set under one sun

all that I have is neither mine nor yours

there was never anything else, you are your own

hell and heaven, and always and nowhere

unfounded, upright

statistically average

neither living nor dead

lichen

***

may God give hair to the woman in the third room

for her sharp cheekbones and the bottomless wells of her eyes

as she walks along the wall, may the feathered ones distract from her thoughts

this woman in clothes two sizes too big

and may the lilacs in the hospital yard shed their white flowers

like worldly laughter

and the boldest bees endeavor to drink straight from the jar of fruit juice

may the lord let her, healthy, never again think that there is no never

and never again postpone her life for later

if she can only leave this ward, this state, oh God,

to breathe in the transparent air until it tickles her chest

breathe out, marveling at the clouds, plants, insects, people,

let the neighbor girl pet her buzz cut

                                                                             which grows so fast,

maybe by fall she’ll have a ponytail

***

“be clear” the man in the waiting room said

and I looked around: who would bring clarity

to this dismal place of dead-end doors

with the flickering fluorescent tubes just below the ceiling

with faces illuminated by cell phone screens

the sounds of typing—long and short words

of bickering, justifications, exclamations, spaces

bring clarity like a rack of test tubes, ms. lab assistant,

under the flap of your trench coat and then suddenly

open it carelessly, girl in a mini skirt,

bring clarity like a shiny toy in the hands of a child,

a vintage brooch from the 80s on a jacket lapel, ma’am

clarity is like aching gums, like dark eyes of an old man

that can’t see because they focus too far

bring clarity respectfully, for what is it if not

the sharpness of the diagnosis, certitude, absoluteness,

the light in the crack under the dead-end door

that’s being opened right now and admitting one of us inside

***

so you and I have become bearers of bad news

to places that previously were relatively good, wholly tolerable

people who want to squeeze a tear out of every rock along the road

no matter where you go, you lose everything

from whose light hand the word death devalues and demands an ever-greater fee

to buy the world’s attention, let alone weapons

people who didn’t train, but set out to run such a long way,

what were we hoping for, they ask sternly

unpersuasive, stuttering, flushed

women prematurely gray, with a bitter crease near their mouths

with bodies fattened by grief

the lists of our dead are too long to name them in our daily prayers,

the wounds of our living too deep to poke with fingers of misbelief

run, sister, carry your bitter news past the festive holiday windows,

reflect in each one,

resist going off the track, shoot at temptation’s voice

run, sister, someday they’ll call this a marathon

***

I’m learning to paint silently

the way a pitcher is silent, filled to the brim with rain

flaking with glaze here and there

in silence like nowhere else

I can learn, applying the paint from above

in a thick stroke on everything someone’s

once told me, not covering up the pain

I’m learning how to run away from here

how not to hold the paths in my head,

lead me, my brush, lead—

every facet speaks in silence:

the red splotch in green—a geranium,

the window’s blue parallel   slanted

shadow of the frame, a shout’s

loud echo shattered   let it die out while I

keep silent, full as a pitcher,

like loam   like clay   whatever it is