​Poems by Oksana Hadzhii 

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nobody told me how to experience it
to feel it
to live with it
 
to pet a dog
before giving it away for keeping
and not to wash my hands long after that
 
to close the chinchilla’s cage,
to listen to the goldfinch twit
to feed them keeping in mind
that they won’t survive
 
how to pay the mortgage again
for the apartment with three balconies
where the glass probably covered the carpets
 
to close hands behind your back
hugging you
like the bullet-proof vest that you will fasten
 
please teach me how to react
with the words “there is no war”
 
when my sister tells me her basement is flooded
and they sleep across the bed behind the wall
when my friends’ child is crying
reluctant to go to the shelter
 
teach me how to be proud for killers
to distrust my own eyes
to hate my country
so tender that I want to cover every building with my own body
every Primachenko’s work
everyone who had to leave home
 
learn how to
live with it
 
Translated from Ukrainian by Ella Yevtushenko
​
First published on Chytomo.com

​Oksana Hadzhii is a poet and designer. She works as an art-director for several Ukrainian book publishings. She has participated in several cultural festivals in Ukraine and abroad (Puls Literatury, Book forum, Book Arsenal and others). She has organized literary and musical events at the charity festival Artherapy in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Winner of several literary competitions and awards (Smoloskyp, Young Republic of Poets, Dictum), her poems have been translated into English, French, Russian, Belarusian, Arabic and Polish and published in several anthologies and literary journals. 

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