An earlier version of this poem was published in The Heartland Review, Fall 22 issue, available for purchase:
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www.theheartlandreview.com/store
In response to Irina Ratushinskaya’s Pencil Letter
Irina, we hear you, we need you now
in your Kyiv cell writing a letter you thought
would not be received, would not be
sent. We hear the sound
of your resilience succeeding.
Rain lashing over reinforced bars.
You saw beyond the torment,
beyond separation.
Those years bent over
poems, with no knowledge
of that ninth of October, stepping out
into a world brinking thaw,
when you would be
the fragile embodiment of a soul
that could not be crushed.
in your Kyiv cell writing a letter you thought
would not be received, would not be
sent. We hear the sound
of your resilience succeeding.
Rain lashing over reinforced bars.
You saw beyond the torment,
beyond separation.
Those years bent over
poems, with no knowledge
of that ninth of October, stepping out
into a world brinking thaw,
when you would be
the fragile embodiment of a soul
that could not be crushed.