You Lie in a HammocK

Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in 'Poet Lore', 'The Pinch', 'Salamander', 'Willow Springs', 'Grub Street', 'Magma Poetry' and many others. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of 'The Red Fоrest' (2018).  He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine.  

You lie in a hammock

under the canopy of two cathedrals fashioned from stained glass.

The ash of the sky pours down as light-blue rectangles;

your whole suntanned body dreams itself to be

a lacquered baby violoncello:

red nerves are going to be here and there,

tight strings are going to be stretched,

and the shadows of branches strum your changing in the chiaroscuro face,

the curls of your snaking hair.

Gray almonds of the sky

pulse in your eyes

as if something alien and evil tries to break free.

You are tired of waiting for love,

like a landmine that lies in the forest since WWII

is tired of rusting for decades in the damp soil,

under thick grass,

and waits for someone's steps;

you wait for his steps.

Pushing yourself with your bare foot, off the apple-tree trunk,

you swing the whole sky – the carcass of the blue bull on the spit of sunlight,

and the shadows of leaves work spells above your face,

like kids pretending to be sorcerers, harrypotters, wizards -

the reticulate magic of silence and

the ticking bomb of your gray eyes…

 (Translated from Russian by Sergey Gerasimov)