By Tatiana Retivov

Disassociation begins

While you are negotiating

The roadblocks, you hover

As if above yourself

Flinching as cruise

Missiles interfere with

Your train of thought.

The road curves out

Of view, the emergency

Lane on the right is full

Of abandoned cars.

Do not stop, don’t

Look back, be not

Like Lot’s wife or

Euridyce. There is

No going back.

Or is there? You are under

The influence of a fugue,

One day all is well and

then cruise missiles fly

overhead crosshatching

the abandoned fields.

Tatiana Retivov received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montana and an M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Michihgan She has lived in Kyiv, Ukraine since 1994, where she runs an Art & Literature Salon and a small publishing press that publishes prose, poetry, and non-fiction in Ukraine