“They were singing a folk song…” | “And had you asked me how it feels—” | “Not long is left until a kiss and the spring…” | “When they dragged him out of the school yard…”

They were singing a folk song.

The language broke at the folds

and the shards sparkled like coal. The throat prickled,

as if people were calling the one who would not come,

who had never come.

And I wanted to cry and to join them

so that my lungs would break from my chest: two boats—we’ll say,

Tenderness and Longing froze near the wharf.

They could not sail off, moored to this chilly air

by the larynx and trachea.

I wanted to cry and to escape,

to leave, not wasting time, far away, never to return

and when at the border they ask, “What is in your luggage?”

I open the bag with ringing fragments

and I cannot explain what broke.

All the words have flown out

into an enduring winter song.

And had you asked me how it feels—

to return from a peaceful day into a state of war—

I would have liked to tell you about my endless journey.

How I wore out seven pairs of steel-toed boots, how I used three metal canes

and near the river, where there is a small glade, I saw

how, having lowered its long round neck, the war greedily drinks

and now I know definitively how to kill it,

hacking between the fifth and sixth vertebra,

only it’s crucial for it to be one confident movement.

In reality:

three hours on the road, the car flies

past mobile checkpoints, and as morning breaks the guys from the National Guard

are smoking in the freezing cold, in the snow, too tired to joke around.

And I’m like an open palm cut by paper.

What new things can we tell you about borders and divisions

when you ask? But you already have asked,

taking my hand in yours, touching my wounded palm

with your tongue. It’s just that it

feels so raw.

Not long is left until a kiss and the spring.

The anxious rope of love tugged, tickling the throat.

All night the rain falls onto the roof, patters, like dried peas.

From a distance one has sharper vision, so tell me, how

did you see each other when you looked almost point-blank

and the other could not stand it and lowered her eyes?

The red marks of winter, itchy skin, dry lips,

eyes tearing, voice uncontrollably

reaching a higher pitch. Not a kiss yet, but

in the short-lasting embrace it already feels too tight to breathe—the heart,

this combat Zeppelin, held up by hot air,

breaks through the sling of the body and frees itself.

And I don’t know how far it will flow into the rain, I haven’t had a chance

to name it.

If it finds its way,

then name it.

When they dragged him out of the school yard,

four of them yanked him by the hands, all the women lamented,

children cried, neighborhood dogs howled.

And when, pressing on the nape of his neck, they tried to push him

into a police car, he tried to break free

and spoke surprisingly calmly:

Don’t cry, children,

the world and the light are strange words and their echoes

and in the school boiler room where it’s dark and smells of coal,

as if it is another part of the world, it’s better this way.

I wanted to speak to the world and the light in my own language,

I wanted to read by the light of The Holy Book

and if the world whose borders are but salt and iron,

inherited from one’s parents, has no room for that,

then there’s no point in hiding either.

And he told the women

to quiet down, to remember

because people who were disemboweled for being loyal to their own flag

should be able to understand him, to hear him.

And right before the hand with unclean nails pressed on his head,

he had time to look up.

The car was setting off, the dust kicked up high.

The minaret, having gathered the sun onto its skinny top,

was not letting it set and for a long, long time

melted like a candle.

Калитко, Катерина, “Там співали народної,” “І якби запитав мене, як воно,” “Ще трохи лишається до цілунку і до весни ” and “Як його виводили зі шкільного подвір’я,” from Ніхто Нас Тут Не Знає, І Ми Нікого. Чернівці: Мередіан Черновіц 2019.