POEMS

POEMS

By Kateryna Derysheva
Translation: Arch Tait

 
 
EMULSION

1

a taut thread of hugs
quivers
in alarm

we continue to exist
in the unclouded smile of children’s eyes

the white noise of trees no longer
lulls not newborn me
an imagined shoulder
supports a wobbly head
[she’s learning to hold her head up]
counting off all the fears it knows
like a counting rhyme

I talk and the lacquer of my voice
spraying
holds in place the style of
how my personal world is ordered

2

when oil and water mix
they form an emulsion
(now you and I are mixed there is no separating us
no matter how far we are apart)

the news is mosquito bites
you read it and scratch the blisters of worry
while you’re asleep they itch
while you’re asleep they hurt

3

asleep a happy dream of snow
the three of us walking over it
we stop to look at snowflakes
on the twigs of a maple
our son tastes them with his tongue
and asks to do it again

to the snow life seems like a slowing
after a hard war

[soon they will go to play
snow angels]

5–6 February

***
1

(the porcelain rim of death)

the desperation in a teenager’s eyes moves tectonic plates apart

[a little bird’s heart beats faster as it tries to survive]

2

under a terror blanket of flooring slabs

a mum a dad and an unborn child
fall asleep

in each other’s arms

3

a body
covered in plaster and bandages

exists

4

[a record-player finishes playing the bird’s cardiogram]

Stone

live among tiles and you become stone
no human hands to warm you

cold unfeeling stone
you shake under bombardment

but endure
while the building stands

***
*
the wood burns inside
the twilight of speech grows darker

words
inside out
float
like gleaming coins

terrified animals populate
museums of waste
museums of abandoned parks and cities

a diy world
in the grip of a technology-generated
cata
strophe

plastic clouds blow in the wind