"Call it a letter to the soil and sea and air, / A love letter to the Earth we once knew, / Its once-warm embrace— / We say, in fondest adumbration, / Don’t hold tight..."
"Have I told you how badly I wanted to lift the shroud of Saint Basil of Ostrog / to see if the smell of basil lingered in his bones? / I didn’t— / not because I’m scared of the dead or the sacred..."
"Upstairs some angel is dreaming / about all the women it annunciated. / It is dreaming about the calluses / on the buff of their feet, how the calluses / change shape with their heavying bodies..."
"Karma keeps a small smile as warm / wishes warp shawls, harps help heels. / Walk a seesaw sail. She seeks harm, / washes wasps. A weak meal sparks real / skills. Her arms are a limp heap; she spills / his share..."
"Yesterday, I wasn't myself, I was not my shadow, I was not your brother, nor your friend, nor your sister, nor the meat, nor the bone that gnaws the dog, nor the dog that gnaws the bone..."
"Buried under the grass is a home for worms and insects / The buried has no room for error..." Mykyta Ryzhykh publishes internationally in both Ukrainian and English.