Empty streets, even our taxi
is missing, but the train station
is crowded. I comb
my hair, looking at
the reflection
in the ticket window.
I look out at the morning.
The morning isn’t working.
Light in the station
replaces the sun.
We walk along the platform.
Inside the car, we look at
my reflection
in the window.
We are ready to see
my reflection in other faces.
The countryside passes.
We are afraid of loss,
looking into each other’s faces.
His stare will keep me in place,
my green eyes, coloring his brown.
We drank beer with the poet
and he pulled me into translation,
at the moment and on the page.
I only wanted what was familiar,
the shapes that were always
beneath my fingers.
I wanted to learn the contours of my own
voice in our closed compartment.
Olena Jennings is the author of the collection The Age of Secrets. She is the translator or co-translator of collections by Ukrainian poets Iryna Shuvalova, Kateryna Kalytko, Vasyl Makhno, Yuliya Musakovska, and Anna Malihon. She lives in Queens, New York City, where she founded the Poets of Queens reading series and press.
