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.