Enola Gay

 the earth already cold and sticky with peninsulas
adheres to the soles
and I long for everyday steppe
dust
along spikes of grain with gold on their eyelashes

the leaves become the Vitruvian center
in the web
and the spaces are broken by ribs into the abyss
until I catch a high-pitched whisper with my ear
the chlorophyll bends of scales
of the aerial snake

now its only in police sirens
everything is still homogenous in a noir fashion
the night in their echo is like a piece
tin
from which my late father once
made a weight for a fishing rod

I stood next to him then and studied
the launch the hook into the sky
we tried to catch single fish,
planes in early August
but their pilots skilfully dodged us
just as they kept their course to Japan

Translated from the Ukrainian by Stephen Komarnyckyj