Lyuba Yakimchuk

Three Poems Translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk  and Max Rosochinsky

Ashtray

no longer a building
no longer a home
to mom, to dad, to me
to the vegetables in the fridge

not a home, not a fortress
no longer of four walls

(barely even fit to be a suitcase
or a backpack)

now—a big sooty
ashtray
for a god
who inhales the smoke
and lets fruit flies out of his mouth

Mutual Friends

we’ve got mutual friends on Facebook, you and I
friends who had died

nobody buried their profiles
friends post flowers on their walls

it’s like having a grandmother
buried at the city cemetery

the roots of an apple tree at her grave entwined
with the roots of the evergreens at the graves close by

before Easter, I go to her to tidy up
in case this is the year
she decides to rise

I weed around her grave 
so as not to get embarrassed when she rises
I light up the candles
so there’d be light when she rises

but what to do with these Facebook friends
who left for the better world
leaving their profiles behind in this one?

will they ever rise
and send a message?

post a selfie?

like this poem of mine?

Asylum, a Dance

the apricot tree’s arms are broken
her dancing wild
the golden sequins rustle
like thousands of children armed with bells
her head turns with the wind

all the ducks emigrated
and even the hen departed in a truck
to a far-away land
far and away, confirmed an arctic tern
which only landed here for a quick transfer

yet my apricot tree
isn’t packing its leaves into suitcases
even though she does have somewhere to go
relatives send her postcards on dandelion fluff
offer to help out with a visa

she stands all alone by a slag heap
and when the wind comes
she does her wild dance
as if she’s ready to uproot herself, to fly away
to a better life

asylum, a dance
desperate and risky
as long as an apricot tree root
as long as the apricot tree’s
very life