I came home from the war today, but no one noticed me.

Probably because I didn’t bring any pictures.

I wanted to say that, but it turned out I didn’t know how.

Behind my back, birds were chirping, puppies and kittens were squeaking,

and other animals, too, and I had to shoot forward

just to keep them quiet. My back sprawled as if the

the field stood upright and the sky washed over it. And so now

I understand only bird and beast languages,

in them I tell everything that did not have time to be in the pictures.

I came from the war and wanted to embrace my daughter, my mother and father,

while my husband turned into a big iron bird

and stayed in the sky,

and now I can feel the sky

caressing my back and kissing

my husband’s lips.

Grandma, the bird is singing somewhere near, and the kitten

meows, let’s take him, says my daughter to my mother.

How are we going to take it, we only have three walls and a gas

stove on which I warm bread for the three of us.

Grandpa, I beg you, let’s take the kitten

and let’s give the bird a shelter.

How will we take the bird, my little one,

she will fly away and there’s not a single tree around.

And the kitten will fall, for we do not have the fourth wall.

I came home from the war today and didn’t know how to tell them.

12.04.23
 
* * *
 
If I hear a whisper

from one country through another

and across the country

I hear a whisper

it makes me

transparent
 

If I avert my eyes

taking a quick picture of how

th-th-th-that which looks like a scream kicking a beast

shriek shrieeeeeeeek shrieeeeeek shrieeeeeek

aaaaaaaa

live, beast

my insides

turn into yours and

shine through
 

if I hear footsteps

on every stairway

of every entrance in which

a life is taken

I hear every step

that carries away a life

every step

it hits me on the head with a swing

cutting through
 

if the faces in the photo

a quick glance

all all all the faces swim up

like corpses in rivers

a couple of months later

after I look away

they swim right through me

tearing me through
 

If I understand everything

Almost almost almost all

don’t talk don’t talk don’t talk
 

If I can hear better I can see better

Lord, I’m not Your lyrical character

Lord, I am not Your hero.

Lord, I am not Your

pot
 

All who are alive are dead

Even if they are dead

Or still alive

 
I-me-in-a-bag-adrenaline

In the form of water for

living water

 
I’m only moving indiscriminately

To prevent other movements

carrying away taking away

carrying away taking away

carrying away taking away
 

I’m smiling I’m smiling I’m only smiling

only because my face is distorted

I don’t cry just because

crying is more comfortable, more effective, more therapeutic

fake fake fa-ak-k-ke

I’m not your pain

pain

pain

pai

 
I don’t have headphones

I don’t have my glasses

I don’t have

12.1.22
 
* * *

 
I’m stroking you, Ukraine, on your wet bloody back

with a mussed coat

blood on your tail blood on your paws on your muzzle you blood flows from your nose to your mouth

as though you are a little cat almost a kitten

I saw yesterday in Tbilisi’s courtyard

Eat, eat, kitty

You warm yourself in cellars you lick your wounds

Is your kid brother dead?

You’re trampled on by humans with their screams and soles

by stones of walls kicked by rockets

But when I stroke you

like a big brother thrusting

a tune in your flowerbeds your fur burnt wool

your tangled bloody skin no I’m powerless on the sidelines

standing there blurred by my blinders of memory

forgot where all my loved ones live

I’ve been writing about it I’ve been writing about it

licking the salty letters off my cheeks

but what can I do

if the day is tied to the day

like a harness to a horse

off its wheels and running

running running through the fields, the mountains, the foothills

its bleeding sides, a bleeding muzzle

impossible to stop

Free and wounded free and wounded

how can I get you drunk and fed

my jumping bloody free one

I’m writing about it

I’m repeating myself obscenely like

my dreams that skip over diagnoses

Who’s there or here I can’t wake up can’t wake up

Wake up I can’t fall asleep

Letters come out of my throat spewing vomit.

Beasts don’t cry bleeding

Ukraine in the name of a wound that cannot be stitched.

Metaphors are too intelligent for trouble.

and too bloodless.

I had a dream three months ago about Georgia.

I was talking to its second President Shevardnadze.

He was worried about how to help the country and what to do.

And in the dream I told him to treat it like a stray dog.

I also dreamed of a woman crying, a Jewish woman who lost her dog.

Ask another God, I told her. When you ask them the first time, they do it

But only the first time

Who to ask these days? All the gods have already been asked for

the beasts as for the wounded landscape killed or wounded as

the homeless beasts

I don’t care because no other revelation was given to the world

and you thought the apocalypse was something from Hollywood

no, it’s just pain and decay and the extent of it

stretches the body like a torture chamber to the size of the soul

although everyone has been offered a discounted one

18.01.23
 
Translated from Russian by Nina Kossman