by Carey Taylor

Look at Yaryna’s smile, the way her head leans into his cheek, hiding half her face. Look at her dimples, straight white teeth, military green babushka, camouflage jacket, one eye half-open looking directly at her phone. Such beauty—one could almost miss, what is it? rifle scope in her breast pocket? Handsome Petro, looks straight at us—scraggly beard, mustache, mussed-up hair, eyes more open than hers, smile reserved, straight nose. Each day they fight side-by-side, joke about their recent marriage in Nova Kakhovka for 85 kopecks, how she proposed to him, how Petro left his unit without orders to join her at the front. How when he showed up the platoon commander shrugged his shoulders and said Okay! Welcome! When they fall into bed, there is no desire for sex. Yaryna drapes her arm over his side, places her palm on his chest, counts the beats of his heart. Petro is thinking of the first time they made love under a yellow moon, remembers tracing the contours of her body in that golden light. Now Petro lifts himself up on one arm, slows his breath, listens for the drones of war, then watches the moon and red Antares dip into the west.

Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press 2018). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in Ireland, England, and the United States. She holds a Master of Arts degree in School Counseling and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. https://careyleetaylor.com