Oksana Maksymchuk

THREE POEMS


Degrees of Separation

By the time it is over some of us will
die many of us will watch
loved ones die 

most of us will watch 
loved ones watch
their loved ones die

connecting us all 
pearl by pallid pearl
gem by bleeding gem

From a distance of words
in the frame of a blank-faced page
you too bear witness to

the interminable

Pachyderm

Uncle ties a towel
around his neck—

cushion for a thirty pound
kettlebell—

wears it like
a pendant

See him on all fours
on the floor, pushing his body up

veins so taut, they ought
to pop open?

On the couch, under
an Afghan blanket, we lie in wait

for him to approach—then we squeal!
Our heels fend off

thick cubic torso wrapped in pink
sash of a scar—

a memento from his glory days as
member of an obsolete order:

Maker of dour
counterfeit “Soviet Champagne”

bleeding green cards; digits
missing in action; smashed

high-end watches on
broken arms

Toppling Statue

On a plinth—solid idol, lover of
order, reader of the Bible

Honored for valor
in a battle on the wrong side

of history—
he was not above his time:

held serfs, raped a little
drank undiluted wine

Got tangled up
with some seedy types

Caved in under the force of
circumstance

Nobody dared throw the first
stone, until one day

he fell 
all by himself

into a shimmering puddle

 

Oksana Maksymchuk is the author of poetry collections Xenia and Lovy in the Ukrainian. Her English-language poems appeared in AGNI, the Irish Times, the Paris Review, the Poetry Review, and other journals. With Max Rosochinsky, she co-edited Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, and co-translated Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk and The Voices of Babyn Yar by Marianna Kiyanovska. Oksana holds a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University.

 
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