Collaboration 

By OLENA JENNINGS 

We are stretching towards each other, 
words tangling. The words can’t always  
be torn apart. Sometimes you  
are ти. Sometimes we touch.  

Two languages grow close  
to one another. They take  
the form of plants, vines 
intertwining, the leaves of letters. 

What we have in the end  
is a collage. I long for the English, 
but what we have is a weaving, 
the Ukrainian peeking through. 

The poem I recite 
has the melody of the Ukrainian  
behind it as I braid a child’s hair, 
one piece over the other  

until they can’t be undone.

 

Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection The Age of Secrets and the novel Temporary Shelter. She is a translator of collections by Ukrainian poets Kateryna Kalytko (together with Oksana Lutsyshyna), Iryna Shuvalova (together with the author), Vasyl Makhno, and Yuliya Musakovska (together with the author).

[Purchase Issue 28 here.] 

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Collaboration 

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