Death in Ukraine Has Become More Accessible than Salt - Nicole Yurcaba

The deathless are the dying, the dying are the deathless—one is living the other’s death, one is dying into the other’s life.—Heraclitis

Andriy finds it in the marketplace, touches it with the tip of his boots,
the ones his sister in England purchased on Amazon.

Oleksandr notices it behind his flat. He spies it lying half-naked
on the grass, holding a bag of spilled groceries.

Myroslava sees it in the cemetery, standing beside her parents
as they select the plots they’ll use in three days.

Lyuba tastes it on freshly picked apricots, coated in oil
from a smoldering tank. A soldier’s hand clings to the hatch.

Oksana shoves it into Russian soldiers’ pockets, pushes it
deep, praying for their liberation. The soldiers shoulder rifles.

Andriy returns, carrying it on his back, its eyes blankly
open; its mouth a loose black O. He dumps it on a cot, walks away.

Oleksandr buries it, beside the swing-set in the park,
to the left of the flowerbed, near a bench adorned with locks.
Myroslava laughs at it: it stands at the front door, knocking
three times, drawing her outside, into a downed jet’s rain.

Lyuba fingers it. She touches it on the ikon she buries
in a suitcase beneath a pair of jeans, three pairs of panties.
Oksana faces it, its crimson eyes scouring her body
as she washes in the last of the water she collected on Monday.

Lyuba hands it to Myroslava on the day of Myroslava’s mother’s
funeral. It sits hunched in a basket, knees drawn to its chest,
beside the apricots Lyuba washed this morning.

Oksana brushes its cheek, wipes it from Andriy’s brow
before Oleskandr closes the casket’s lid. It escapes
the casket, walks beside the villagers and Oksana, whispering.


Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian (Hutsul/Lemko) American. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press, Lit Gazeta, Chytomo, Bukvoid, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth, is available from Alien Buddha Press.