Ewa Chrusciel

Translated from the Polish by Ewa Chrusciel Leopolis semper fidelis Seemed like forever and ever Until Stalin stole it And now Putler bombs it You’ll see, you scum You will see Soot of Moscow, smoking ruins of your cities Polluted Forever cursed and dead There won’t be anybody left to rebuild When stone upon stone

Translated from the Ukrainian by Bożena Boba-Dyga  and Ewa Chrusciel   The biggest dream: to be with you all at Easter To gather for Easter. This Easter. Greetings, my family; what’s new, Mom? Mom is baking bread as always. My dear ones are all alive. My peace of mind quivers on a line. “My” dear

Turkish smugglers caught him in the wild and trapped him in a veiled cage, hung in a cafe. Deprived of light, the goldfinch mourned, his song a prayer of lament. Sorrow breeds melodies. Pipe smoke wafted through the room. The men meditated; they puffed nostalgic rings into the air. The goldfinches’ plaintive song lingered and

This piece is part of our Fall/Winter 2020 print issue.

This piece is part of our Fall 2019 print issue.

The house cracked from the inside. It plaited and meandered in waves. The tree and the house grew into one. The bark entered the house, inmates of shrines of cicadas. A medieval tower with a clock blasted vertically, with no slant on its knees, and the clock swooped like an owl, grabbed all the hours

We are an emergency room Will litanies arrive? We are the house and the tree, in somebody else’s story. We pass the field of poppies; we collect red graffiti, sacred nouns, red relics. Psalms spread their tents and light their cigarettes.  

Here all the boughs belong to the dead,they wave the boughs persistently in the wind;do their young eyes still live in the photo albums,I don’t know, they left the uniforms behind,the wedding gowns, the first communion clothes,naked they slither between the boughs;is there a place to graze or picnic at God’s, I don’t know; I

Growing into loneliness, even her bike won’t help, her shiny mountain bike. Growing into the emptiness behind the windowsill, sudden precipice; growing into herself and from herself, in-between she won’t find anything, won’t find a willing one to search together – she doesn’t know that yet, for now she walks her bike and strokes it,

Ice-bound, folded; internal rhyme of the earth; is silent next to a stone, maybe shy; not a stream nor living vein under the ice,  he is like mercury, quicksilver tear, a plaster cast of dislocated space; the women’s furs walking sway the church. 1In Polish Krynica is a famous city with natural springs and the

I entered so many churches in vain, plaster statuettes laughed at me… Left alone children cried, the remains of God had to be peeled from their muddy jackets, the father bar hopped, visited whores, the world drifted away like a wobbly rail car without a conductor or engine driver; later I met the same children

Trees branch under water
Yes nests inside the yes
breathes, triangulates, bivalves