A Woman Named Hope

it rained for four straight months
knocking down crops, trampling gardens
they came as new recruits
diligently watering the roadside bushes
as long as they could to slow their march to foreign war

and none of us knew
                                where the war zone actually was
no one understood the true scope of the losses
when a woman called Hope came to lift our spirits
she had no intention of dying

each person, she told us, carries their own war
and a weapon
                      they’ll clutch to the end,
and victory is a whore — she doesn’t care where she lies
she belongs to anyone

and we listened to a roll of thunder leave her throat
while she sang to us strange marching drills and lullabies
every drop of her saliva a balm
containing the poison of love

because every woman, she warned, knows this kind of love
that brings her low, shoves a gun barrel in her mouth
and does not kill her. After, the rains pass through her,
                              troop after troop
washes away the blood.


Translated from the Ukrainian by Sibelan Forrester
and Mary Kalyna with Bohdan Pechenyak