Halyna Kruk, Amelia M. Glaser, and Yuliya Ilchuk | February 2024

Halyna Kruk

i return on a bus full of quiet children 

i return on a bus full of quiet children, silent mothers 

with bundles of winter clothes from distant lands 

where they were safe but unhappy, 

sad, eyes looking back 

where they waited each night for a return trip 

longing to meet someone, anyone 

to tell them their cities were still there 

not made-up homes drawn by children 

beneath a sun, because everyone knows the sun, 

but home – far from everyone, 

but dad or mom – not everyone. 

it takes so long to relearn pre-war things, former skills, 

even longer than coming home from various countries 

longer than forgetting the sound of explosions, someone’s dying 

scream, the empty water canister shared by everyone 

in that basement, who stayed in that basement. 

a boy draws a cat without a leg, 

and the people who never came out, and he draws himself, silent. 

with a red felt pen, red screams for everyone 

and black buries the ones who didn’t come out 

the bus carries us home through the night past memories on the roadside 

past fear that neither home nor city is there

 

 

with Europe in the background 

1 

to grow old from the news 

to go gray from the black smoke, 

to see through the gaping hole 

in a burned out high-rise 

as Europe’s distant sun sets 

i’ll have to rethink literary history 

before i teach it to my students 

those who survive will need a different discipline 

those who survive will need a different world 

who will return from ours? 

2

i’m not blaming you, i’m just taping 

over the panes in our large European windows, 

in our bright European cities, crosswise and around the perimeter 

the air raid alarm doesn’t leave room for the other kinds of alarm 

don’t forget to turn off the gas and the lights, 

says the radio in my good friend’s voice 

and i understand he isn’t joking, 

this alarm is already in your air, Europe, 

don’t forget the gas and the lights 

take us in, like bad news, 

take us in, like unpleasant medicine 

take us in, like a premature birth, 

whatever’s born will be yours 

however sweet 

however bitter

 

and Jesus ascended 

and Jesus ascended at the Mount of Olives 

in the city of Bucha, in the city of Irpin, 

in the town of Hostomel, in the village of Motyzhyn 

in the town of Borodianka 

in the city of Chernihiv, in the city of Kharkiv, 

in the long-suffering city of Mariupol 

and prayed to the Father – 

let this cup stop with me, 

crucified on a bodily cross 

on an unidentified mortal’s body 

2022 the year of our Lord 

in a soulless world 

heaven and earth walk on by 

 

and for this pain 

and for this pain i can give you no name 

and for this pain I can give you no tears 

and wherever we go, it’s close on our heels 

like subcutaneous horror, like a frozen cry, like one of us… 

i’m Lot’s wife, who looked back at the world one last time