by Nicole Yurcaba
I bury my past’s reluctances in
the crushed black snake’s skull:
at least its pains are over.
I kill night mares whose mist creeps
through the bedroom keyhole
by plugging it with freshly melted wax.
On Kupala, I wash my lover’s blood from my hands
after I float my vinok, watch it sink, and know
it was I who served his head on the platter.
I push my firstborn son
into a name amalgamated
from each of my past’s conquests.
I turn away when my lover reveals cloven hooves,
tears my crucifix from my neck,
and the ground swallows us whole.
At the funeral feast, I release
the death shroud. The crowd
gasps, disbelieving.
I shine: a jeweled snake who sees
my father’s tears, his age. I clear the fields
in a single night for the king’s daughter’s hand.
I sing. I hold. I keep. I muse.
I live. I understand. I build.
I surface.
After calling upon the King of Ravens,
I destroy the evil crone
who imprisoned her daughter underground.
After my lover leaps the bonfire’s flames,
after he retrieves my vinok from the river,
I drown.
I shout to the giant whose belt
and bread I stole. After all,
what did a single loaf’s disappearance hurt?
I cast out the devil’s visitors
by crossing myself three times
and standing in a circle of juniper twigs.
I welcome the gold my lover leaves
beneath my pillow as I sleep. He creeps
into my room. He thinks I do not know.
I dance with my lover’s swords, his spears,
the scars I take from the blades
dictating each step.
I honor my lover by passing
our son beneath my skin,
the one he stripped me of long ago.
Nicola Yurcaba is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming Black Spring Group in 2022. She teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and works as a career counselor for Blue Ridge Community College. On Twitter @NYurtsaba.
