there’s a photograph of a young man in a small wooden frame on the wall
above the scuffed dining-room table of a family apartment in Kiev.
he is wearing a beige army-issue jacket and he is beaming with pride.
these details are important particularly because
this apartment has been
blown to shreds by a bullet-black pill
and so it can exist now only in theory.
its skeleton of steel and concrete lies in wait, an element of the wasteland,
as if expecting vultures to come pick its bones clean.
the magnets from the fridge are scattered across sickly, burnt grass
and great-grandmother’s teacups are crushed into sand and
fused in the explosion.
the photograph is nowhere to be seen, but the frame is nearby,
and the glass is
cracked.
the young man’s dear mother is hiding in the cellar.
her gentle face and smile lines are glowing blue and wet,
glittering in the light emanating from her phone screen.
she cries as she holds her little baby bird in her hand.
little pools of salt coalesce and slide on the smooth screen and
warp his smiling face, making it look as if he was deep underwater.
these details are important particularly because
this young hero has blown himself to shreds along with a bridge,
so bravely and selflessly, to save everything he loved most,
and so he can exist now only in memories.
there will be photographs on many walls,
in many homes,
of men who can never come home.
in administrative buildings and war memorials
there will be photographs of these men
and everywhere, there will be mothers looking at them,
wishing that the blast had taken them both.
the quiet sounds of the young hero’s mother crying
are soon joined
by whistling,
high above the cellar,
somewhere in the dark night sky.
Jay Fleming is a young Czech-American poet. She is thus far unpublished, but hopes to share more of her work with the world soon.
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