O:JA&L Poetry: All forms & styles
Andrés Rodríguez
PROSHCHAVAJ
Kharkiv
I can’t decide what to take.
They are coming, pressing
harder every day.
I’m still here, about to leave,
with kids, dog, bags.
I’ve opened the cage
and let Dusha out.
She flew sideways
through the balcony doors.
I may pass her,
but I won’t know
as I fly anywhere but here.
I tell myself to sing,
sing for the kids, the dog,
but my raven mind
can’t recall the words,
the charming melody
that’s lived in me
since I was a quiet child.
What to take?
Money? Almonds?
My only seashell
from that distant summer
at the Black Sea?
Now I’m sick with agues,
headaches, strange pains.
I’m running in a nightmare
with no power to wake
toward folded wings that bomb
into the streets, hell’s furnace.
O Life, you’ve taken choice
from me and given only
your horror and wrath,
and you’re just getting started.
My pockets
are full of wind.
About the writer:
Andrés Rodríguez is the author of Night Song (Tia Chucha Press), Portal of Dreams (Woodley Press), and Book of the Heart (Lindisfarne Press). In 2007 he won Poets & Writers’ Maureen Egan Award in Poetry. His MA is in Creative Writing (Stanford) and his PhD in Literature (UC-Santa Cruz).
Image: City on Fire (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. Proprietary image. 2025.
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