IYA KIVA
[refugees. theater]
the first night in the safe place – this is what we call the west of the country –
you are lying on the theater floor like props
for the war you can watch for free
in all the eyes at once of the animals frightened to death
[you still have time to buy a ticket in the first row of the third world war –
wrote a well-known western journalist on the eve of the Flood]
the stage-light falls well
so the world can notice dirt under your nails
and your too-long hair, not cut since poland,
that crackles with jewish family branches
when the chalk of good puts a cross on it
you have no manicure – have not done it for eight years –
so when you are reading “this one is for the woman from Bucha”
(will they teach at school about this photo?)
in someone’s cherry orchard on the well-groomed fingers
you ask the red color if it is ashamed of this comparison
but we, like the daffodils sold by old women on tram stops,
from now on will never feel shame of being or not being
the bitter bulbs of the trees that grow by the roadsides of history
well, in a couple of days you will walk down the avenue
of freedom (not a metaphor)
to drop all your prophetic dreams on the floor of the barbershop –
but this will not save you: for memory, like a madman
with a razor of longing in his hand,
is leading you along a dusty field full of dead potatoes
and so long is this field that you see dirt instead of eyes in children’s faces
but for now you are lying on the theater floor like props
and shuddering at the jingling of the trams –
these civil singers in the choir of military aviation –
and you cannot take wax out of the ears of the modern music lovers
Translated from Ukrainian by Eugenia Kanishcheva, first published in Verseville, Issue XXXIII, June 2022
***
is there hot war in the tap
is there cold war in the tap
how is it that there’s absolutely no war
it was promised for after lunch
we saw the announcement with our own eyes
“war will arrive at fourteen hundred hours”
and it’s already three hours without war
six hours without war
what if there’s no war by the time night falls
we can’t do laundry without war
can’t make dinner
can’t drink tea plain without war
and it’s already eight days without war
we smell bad
our wives don’t want to lie in bed with us
the children have forgotten to smile and complain
why did we always think we’d never run out of war
let’s start, yes, let’s start visiting neighbors to borrow war
on the other side of our green park
start fearing to spill war in the road
start considering life without war a temporary hardship
in these parts it’s considered unnatural
if war doesn’t course through the pipes
into every house
into every throat
***
Translated from Russian by Katherine E. Young, first publication in Asymptote, Issue April 2018.
to hold a needle of silence in your mouth
to stitch your words in white thread
to whimper while drowning in spit
to keep from screaming spitting blood
to hold the water of a language on your tongue
which leaks like a rusty bucket
to mend things that are still useful
to sew crosses on the really weak spots
like bandages on the wounded in a hospital
to learn to search for the roots of a life
that has yet to learn its name
Translated from Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, first publication in Literary Hub, February 25, 2022
Iya Kiva is an award-winning poet, translator, journalist and literary critic. Born in Donetsk in 1984, she was forced to leave her hometown and move to Kyiv in 2014 due to the outbreak of war in Donbass. She currently lives in Lviv where she continues to write and work as a volunteer in humanitarian projects and resistance to the Russian invasion.
She is the author of two volumes of poetry, Farthest from Paradise ( Podal’she ot raya , 2018), and The Front Page of Winter ( Persha storinka zimy , 2019) both considered among the best books by the PEN Ukraine association; the same goes for his prose production, including We will wake up different (My prokynemos inshymy , 2021).
Cover art: “Ossidazione_muralePaesaggio” by Enzo Cipriani.
