Zoya's Tears For Kyiv
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Zoya has arrived in my London street, from Kyiv via Prague. She is too old to contemplate a new life and learn a new language. She is safe, but longs to go home.
Zoya sits, now all alone,
just staring through a window pain
to where a pink magnolia blooms
in someone else's garden.
And all her dacha's winter buds
are crushed and tombed in oil and mud
where tank and track has churned
and soldiers on their backs are burned
and seep her garden soil in blood.
Net curtains dim the window pane
but she can count each passing train
seen through the boundary hedge,
and glimpse each combed
and coiffured head
at eight, and half-past nine, and ten,
as Zoya sits upon a bed
and sees them coming home again
at five from Waterloo.
Her curtains flap with icy blasts
damp cushions lie with shards of glass
and where her gentle cats once basked,
dog packs now run her Kyiv street.
Although the hosts are warm, and kind,
Sweet Zoya is now seventy-nine.
Her smile conceals her inner tears,
her loss of ending peaceful years
sat gazing through her bedroom window,
towards her glowing sunflower fields,
her husband still asleep beside her.
Copyright © Bob Kimmerling | Year Posted 2022
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