we바카라ve packed a contraband humanitarian aid kit of war songs
and shipped it to Europe America India and China
paving the silk road with great Ukrainian literature
what have you got there, brothers 바카라 they ask at the borders 바카라
silence dressed up in cyrillic letters
the sacred fire of the candlelight letter 바카라ï바카라
our and your freedom to rest in a land of love
like the broken trees of distant memory
what have you got there, brothers 바카라 ask our dead 바카라
the history of a tribe with a dirty rag in its mouth
rotting chests filled with grandparents바카라 and great-grandparents바카라 lives
which we바카라ve carried for centuries as if shouldering the Carpathians
what have you got there, brothers 바카라 ask our living 바카라
cloths embroidered with military chronicles and stretched-out sweaters of wrath
sloppy sketches mapping the new Europe
children바카라s dust-jackets for future books
what have you got there, brothers 바카라 ask our mirrors 바카라
copper coins of breath in our ripped pockets
the disquiet of air in the broken frames of our mouths
the pulsing streaks of time in our red eyes
(This appeared in the print edition as "Untitled")
Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk
Amelia Glaser is Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego. Yuliya Ilchuk is Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Stanford University
Iya Kiva is a poet, translator and journalist
