Second Coming No. 69 — March 29, 2025

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Myra Malkin
Adiivka

Both sides
use Soviet-designed
heavy artillery systems.

Guns that can fill
a football field
with shrapnel.

Somebody named them for flowers.

The Carnation—122-millimeter
howitzer.
The Tulip—240-millimeter
mortar.
The Acacia—152-millimeter self-propelled
gun.

In Avdiivka, in the Donbas,
there are tulips in people’s yards.
The cherry trees are in flower.

The hospital has no power.
The surgeon in Avdiivka’s hospital
is living at the hospital.
If he went home at night, he might be shelled.

Then there would be no surgeon in Avdiivka.

Besides the Ukrainian soldiers (dug into trenches),
a fifth of the population of Avdiivka
has not yet left Avdiivka.
Is underground—in hiding.

Rocket fire.
No heat.
Occasionally, power.
No water from faucets
—plastic carboys of water.

On someone’s washed-out quilt,
bosomy roses carouse.

Várvara
—six years old—
is crayoning an alien.

The alien is green.
He has an empty eye
that looks into the future.
Várvara tells a reporter:
“The alien says that you will live forever”

“And what about the war?”

They stare at each other, Várvara and her alien.

“He says he doesn’t know that yet,” she whispers.

NOTE: This poem is based, in part, on an article by Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times, 4/20/22 —Ed.

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Myra Malkin is the author of Sunset Grand Couturier (Broadstone Books, 2022), and a chapbook, No Lifeguard on Duty (Mainstreet Rag, 2010). She started out as an actress (mostly way off Broadway) and was a legal services attorney in upstate New York. She now lives in New York City.

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Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

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Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.

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