Porquê tanto cansaço? Porque as cidades são duras e o corpo é mole

 

“I pretend death doesn’t exist.”

 by Iryna Shuvalova (ukrainian poet)

I pretend death doesn’t exist

but death is coming and death is buzzing
over plum trees over cherries and quince
the ruthless stinging of metal bees
spring is coming it’s already spring in nanjing
the columns move toward kyiv military columns

I read the news feed

***

Kyiv-Nanjing
(to my loved ones)

1. the unspeakable

look look look
here here
it lies
the unspeakable

heavy
as a loved one’s
dead body

long
as night when
they’re bombing

take the unspeakable
under its blood-soaked arms
pull it
leave tracks

in the morning may
these red tracks
be seen
from afar

***

2. a poet can’t write about war

neither victim
nor participant
nor defender
nor observer
nor outsider
so who

the war gave everyone a role—what’s yours?
covering your mouth with your palm?

write write
miss can’t-hold-back-the-tongue
suddenly she’s quiet just when it seemed
precisely the time to talk but

what can you say when over there
everyone everywhere is shouting
sirens screaming
smoke crackling high up
evaculuggage wheels squeaking
crooked mouths of shattered windows
desperately howling

she texts you
“I can hear explosions close by,
fighter jets flying”

you don’t know
how to respond.

---
Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, in consultation with the author.
Iryna Shuvalova (b. 1986) is a poet, translator and scholar originally from Kyiv.