Oleh Kotsarev translated from the Ukrainian by Jill Christensen
If Only It Were Possible to Remember
Rockets–like pilgrims–wander from city to city,
There is a metallic fatigue that pulls downward,
But the road goes on,
Leafing through in the appropriate order
The parts of the
Sentence.
Birds disperse along a tangent.
A spider web trembles.
Who are you, designated city?
We won’t have much time to get acquainted.
As if it is possible,
If only it were possible
To remember
The smiling little muzzles
Of your roofs.
Oleh Kotsarev is a writer, journalist, literary critic and translator born in Kharkiv in 1981. He is author of many books of poems, most recently Contents of Men’s Pockets (2021, 2024), as well as a collection of short prose and a novel. His work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies around the world, and has been translated into many languages.
Jill Christensen is a linguist and foreign language teacher. She holds a PhD in Slavic linguistics from Harvard University and a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Salamanca in Spain. Over the years she has taught Russian, Polish, Spanish, and French at both the college and high school levels. She is currently studying Ukrainian. Jill loves poetry and enjoys the challenge of trying to translate poetry from one language into another.