Funeral Services
“he’d be so perfect / if you could only convince yourself that/ he’s just a terrorist, not a human being”
Ukraine
[Now we remember: janitors and the night-sellers of bread]
“we got to soak in the rain/ on cars/ loaded with the unemployed/ like magazines with cartridges”
[someone stands between you and death-but]
“my heart whispers: Death, he hasn’t ripened yet/ he’s still green, nothing in his life has been/ sweeter than unwashed strawberries”
[we swallowed an air like earth]
“some of us exhaled cherry pits/ some bullets”
[people carry explosives around the city]
“people carry explosives around the city/ in plastic shopping bags and little suitcases”
[Buried in a human neck, a bullet looks like an eye, sewn in]
“But the children feel as strong as their machinery,/ mass-produced, with plenty of seamstresses for repairing:”
[The whole soldier doesn’t suffer-]
“just dreadful losses,/ just the day with a dented helmet,/ just God, who doesn’t protect.”
[This is a post on Facebook, and this, a block post in the East]
“I’ll make you a gift: a camouflage case for your tablet;/ time is earwax, peddled in alleyways, under the table.”
[When you clean your weapon]
“When you dig trench after trench/ When you dig this precious this hateful earth by handfuls/ Every other handful reaches your soul”
Halyna Kruk
HALYNA KRUK was born in Lviv in 1974. She is a poet, writer of fiction and a scholar of Ukrainian medieval literature. She authored four books of poetry and collected some of Ukraine’s top awards for young poets. She also writes books for children and young adults. In 2003 Kruk was the recipient of the …