I am worn out from groaning. People: mother, father, baby, child, toddler, student, woman, man. The grandmother who yells In Russian at the young soldier To tuck sunflowers in his front pocket Because when he dies his body will sort Out into new blooms on the land Of Ukraine, that the yellow suns Will redeem themselves, breaking Through shrapnel and Molotov Cocktail remnants, and disappear, like cloth, the children’s cancer ward bombed out, at its corner seams. the teenager named Kira, Waiting with her conure parrot for three Days in line to get into Poland Those underground like the sunflower Seeds, hiding from the night afraid And implosions of fear they cannot Show to their children as they clutch Lego backpacks to chests and look At the blue for signs of sky and yellow For the wheat fields. We are kind, we are peaceful. We will feed you hot tea, the Kyiv men say, we will help you to get home. Nightmare slumber, boyhood, February, Winter, imagining, omen, flying sleep.
Geli Print, ©2022 Julia Bentley- Mcdonald
Used by permission
©2022 Millicent Borges Accardi
All rights reserved
Millicent Borges Accardi…
…is a Portuguese-American writer, author of four poetry collections, most recently Through a Grainy Landscape (New Meridian Arts 2021). Among her awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, CantoMundo, California Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Covid grant), Yaddo, Fundação Luso-Americana (Portugal), and the Barbara Deming Foundation, “Money for Women.” She lives in Southern California, in the hippie enclave of Topanga Canyon.
The BeZine 