Today's poem is by Oksana Maksymchuk

A Guest of War
       

In a bed we set up
on the floor
in the hallway, where the walls
are most solid
with no windows to burst
she rolls into a ball
and falls & falls

not hearing her own sobs
she got so used to them

Packing and hauling bags
throwing bags over train tracks
suitcases and small bundles
of severed arms, hands
straining to sign
some desperate last message:
the name of a loved one
instructions for making
Grandma's heirloom pie

In an endless cellar
that's now her mind, she expands
testing the possible exits
with the outer limits
of her own body, exposed

bare flesh now
no skin

Tweet
Copyright © 2023 Oksana Maksymchuk All rights reserved
from The Manhattan Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission