the war corners us into labyrinths of sleeping districts and bad dreams
and covers us with a cap of uncertainty which we cannot even gnaw through
in the morning you leave your home and see darkness
our normal life is gone eaten by the langoliers
only the wind throws handfuls of lit windows here and there
as if they were packs of migratory leaves
pieces of glass or the last autumn apples in the garden
all that is left is to run from light to light
holding your breath fatalistically
expecting the next lantern to make things clear
but the dawn upon Kyiv is long and hard
and the swollen sky is still in labor
Ella Yevtushenko is a poet, translator and musician from Kyiv. Her first poetry collection Lichtung was published in 2016. She is a finalist of poetry contests “MRP” and “Dictum”, laureate of the contest “Smoloskyp”, participant of festivals Book Arsenal, Ї, BookForum, Translatorium, BookSpace (Ukraine), Authors’ Reading Month (Czech Republic) and others. Her poems have been translated into over 10 languages and published in anthologies in Ukraine, France, the USA, the UK, Ireland, Egypt, as well as in magazines and online portals around the world. Ella translated over 25 books of prose and poetry from English and French to Ukrainian and back, including the anthology of Ukrainian poetry “24 poètes pour un pays” (éd. Bruno Doucey, France, 2022).