When a Missile Finds a Home

By OKSANA MAKSYMCHUK 

Cat in the window 
examines the snowflakes that float— 
marks of art in the winter dark 

It’s a Christmas Eve in my homeland 
the things to come 
waiting to be unwrapped like a gift under the tree 
in a house with a roof 
still intact  

not yet stuffed with snow 
through the openings still posing as 
windows, doors  

I remember the poet who wrote 
of a missile 
entering his home  

For him in Donbas 
all the newness of war is over 
and yet  

Vasya the cat in his lap 
licks his face 
just like it used to  

Mom gets ready for work in the kissel-blue 
glow of dawn while he reads 
verses of Mandelstam 

in a room 
they patched up with 
foam, scotch tape & cardboard  

How he dreamt of becoming the Minister of 
Culture in the new state, orchestrating 
massive screenings of Eisenstein!  

His defenders said: No use for culture now! 
Better take this gun! 
Fatten up the Motherland on some blood! 

It’s all over for him— 
the wait, the uncertainty— 
What will become of me? 

Just the beginning for us

 

Oksana Maksymchuk is the author of poetry collections Xenia and Lovy in Ukrainian. Her English-language poems have appeared in AGNI, The Irish Times, The Paris Review, The Poetry Review, and many other journals. She co-edited Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, an award-winning anthology of contemporary Ukrainian writing. 

[Purchase Issue 26 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

When a Missile Finds a Home

Related Posts

Photograph of a bug

Holding the World’s Coat

DANIEL MOYSAENKO
I do not like what you’ve done to yourself— // predictable theatre of struggle / I’m in the wings / of / world // Instead take this / translucent /  pisces-glyph bug: // Its antennae flitting to test / the space just in front of its face / It struts right into a recluse web 

Headshot of Stephanie Niu

Phenomenology Study / Elegy for Island Love  

STEPHANIE NIU
The banana plant that thrashed outside my lover’s window / seemed unreal. Our hours together felt like a dream: / how he nudged a spider up the shower tile / with a cupped hand, unwilling to hurt anything / alive. How unlike me, watching the slow turn / of the ceiling fan...

The Month When I Watch Joker Every Day

ERICA DAWSON
This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...