Irina Evsa
trans. by Yana Kane
[That Winter]
That winter
I was his, he was mine.
A she-fool with a he-fool.
I held the line—
forbade him to gaze into the dark,
lest his eye stray
to enter a haze
that sways, that sickens the mind
with hundreds of murdered days,
where desolate whistling pierces
a home broken to pieces;
stones rattle, rolling away.
There, windows agape, a wall
gasps for air as it crumbles.
Days rise and nights fall;
a clockmaker gone insane
keeps searching the rubble.
He calls for his daughter in vain.
In the cruel chill,
the city—bled white—lies still
like an empty first aid station.
Minutes twitch,
their nervous tic
speeding up to seconds.
Close the blinds.
Hide. It’s blackout time.
Switch off your laptop here.
…Even if I
had suddenly covered his eyes,
he would've found it all by ear.
Irina Evsa is a Ukrainian poet from Kharkiv. She writes in Russian. She is the author of twenty collections of poetry and the recipient of several international awards. Her poems have been translated into several languages, including Ukrainian, English, and German.
Yana Kane came to the United States as a refugee from the USSR. She holds a BSE from Princeton, a PhD in Statistics from Cornell, and an MFA in Creative Writing at Fairleigh Dickinson. She is grateful to Bruce Esrig for editing her texts.