Duck and Cover
Separated from my child
on the inner lip of the war
I can’t find a point for my soul to balance
I imagine terrible things happening
Terrible things are happening, mom
He sends a pic of his classroom, desks
abandoned in haste, neon gadgets
spilling, books spread out
on the floor like fallen birds
This isn’t funny, I hear his voice piercing
through a message he leaves in a hurry
herded by a booming bass
amidst shrieks of children
Will I see you again? sounds
in the back of my mind —
and I pinch myself
Through catastrophes I still seek
his hand by my side
even if there’s no safety
as we await the bomb
here in close quarters
windows crisscrossed with tape, floors
covered with walnuts that dry
all year, back doors
barricaded with boxes of
chocolates, sacks of
sugar, potatoes, small
wrinkled apples
• • •
Contact
From within a solitude
of a fate you can choose but
cannot share
I encounter the human world
like an extraterrestrial seeking
uncertain contact
The gravity of
everyday discourse —
disorienting & alien
The exchanges of words
like crossing swords
made of recycled plastic
Here and there — an echo
of a forgotten ritual
that once meant something:
a handshake, a kiss
palms folded together
in supplication
If I respond in kind, it’s because
I’m an imitator, adjusting to
local customs
Inside, who am I?
A quiet bubbling
raised to a pitch so high
that cats leave the room
and no dog dares look me
in the eye
• • •
Oksana Maksymchuk is the author of poetry collections Xenia and Lovy in the Ukrainian. Her English-language poems appear in AGNI, The Irish Times, The Paris Review, The Poetry Review, and other journals. She co-edited Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, an award-winning anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry; and co-translated Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk and The Voices of Babyn Yar by Marianna Kiyanovska. Oksana holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University.