To go somewhere and shiver.
To buy sardines, to make borscht,
to tell the immaterial windows about you or not you waiting or not waiting.You don’t speak to the photo,
don’t cover me from wind while walking,
and the trees wearing pantyhose of ice
aren’t surprised to see you here.The winter has washed and whitened everything,
has exhausted, tired, but saved a tiny ember of light–
here you are, it’s yours in this wasteland.
The knees shiver under the armor of ice,
a snowdrift had replaced
the blaze of the sun.
Deserted days, transparent shadows,
and silence that aches in the heart.

____

Evgenia Jen Baranova is an author from Russia. Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Raw Art Review, Persephone’s Daughters, Panoplyzine, Transcend: A Literary Magazine, and Triggerfish Critical Review.

Photography by Fabrice Poussin.