Dmitry Blizniuk

Burying the Dead

scars of fresh graves
uncovered in clay, without crosses
or with them.
the wooden crosses, uncomfortable,
like cranes on crutches.
you avoid making noise as if in a stranger's house.
the huge blue sky presses down.
it's so quiet you can hear ants
climbing on cellophane.
burying the dead is a common thing now.
freshly dug graves
courteously
open their arms.
the blind brown hairy bride is awaiting,
smacking her mole lips.
don't ask for whom the earth, wide open like a square bell, rings.
you know the answer.

Dmitry Blizniuk is a poet from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in Rattle, The Cincinnati Review, Five Points, The Los Angeles Review, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Plume, The London Magazine, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Pleiades and many others.  Forthcoming publications include    POETRY Magazine  and Beloit Poetry Journal. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine.