in this house
the body of a poem, still warm,
hangs on the nail of the mundane
touched to its core
like a reproach, like proof,
that i was here
and you were here
and there was something between us
irresistible as breathing
uncertain as a kiss
unimportant to anyone but us
i love you in the possibility,
which we haven't used up,
the road, which we could have walked,
but didn't,
the choice, which we didn't make,
wanting it all at once
instead of a little bit
at a time
sometimes a poem turns into a house,
that you build at the edge of an abyss,
entirely out of a need
to overcome reality
Kruk, Halyna. "in this house" Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia M. Glaser and Yuliya Hchuk from A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails. Arrowsmith Press, 2023. Griffin Poetry Prize 2024 Finalist. Used with permission from The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.
