Hanging from its pedicel,
sepal leaves pointing toward the warmest star,
the placenta gives birth to seeds
suspended in a fruity gel.
Plucked when ripe, red as blood,
its umami taste
with a tempered sweetness
is cooked, strained, and poured
over the Lokshyna pasta
cradled in Bone China by Mikasa
in a Baroque-style house
located on the far western border of Lviv
where dinnertime still lives.

Hundreds of miles to the East
congealed red blackens where
grain once grew
and bodies now lie,
boot soles peeking through
an overgrown garden
scorched by high-arching mortar shells
that hit like steel thunderbolts.
Rows of concrete barricades
and coils of razor wire
stretch
in front of trenches lined with wood
and covered by camouflage nets.

An orange coffee cup hangs on a nail
pounded into a tree.
Instant coffee made to kill.

Winter immobilizes the mobilized.
Tank ruts freeze and crunch underfoot.
An Eastern European December ices
the Dnipro
as Russian missiles and drones strike
through endless nights.
Electrical grids are assaulted.
Warmth is a fable of summer.

The Kalashnikov rifle
is pretend-strummed as
AC/DC plays on a mobile phone.
“Big gun, loaded and cocked,
Big gun, hot, hot, hot.”
The two bandana-wearing warriors
entertain their unit
before Grad rockets send them scrambling.
Unfazed, another Ukrainian soldier tells a joke
as the beef and buckwheat porridge cooks.
“Why does a soldier wake at 6?
At that hour he feels like killing everything.”

Cigarette smoke fills the soil-walled cavern –
rocket fear numbed by nicotine and laughter.
Another soldier reaches outside the trench
to snap a red berry branch of snow-covered kalyna.
Tangy – it makes a flavorful sauce for tasteless MREs.

 

Laura DeHart Young graduated with a degree in English and enjoys a career in the communications field. She is currently pursuing poetry writing. Laura is the author of seven novels published by Bella Books Inc. She has also written book reviews for “Lambda Book Review” in Washington, D.C.