Wake

By
Leo Yankevich
– February 6, 2012
by Leo Yankevich
The cactus pricks the window pane,
the withered rose begs for a drink.
You look down at the red borscht stain
upon her apron, and you think:
 
never again will she light stoves
with a wood match, or kindle coal,
never again will she hoard loaves
or spread pâté on a stale roll.
 
Seven weeks after Easter, face
now waxed and powdered for the worms,
she waits for God at her own pace
as you attempt to come to terms.
 
All here defies the resurrection:
the borsht-stained apron, the withered rose,
the cactus leaning with affection
towards the only light it knows.  
 
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About Leo Yankevich

Leo Yankevich’s latest books are The Last Silesian (The Mandrake Press, 2005) and Tikkun Olam & Other Poems (The New Formalist Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in Amelia, American Jones Building & Maintenance, Artword Quarterly, Beauty for Ashes Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Candelabrum, Cedar Hill Review, Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, CounterPunch, Disquieting Muses, Edge City Review, Electric Acorn, Envoi, FutureCycle Poetry, Harpstrings, Iambs & Trochees, Iota, Ironwood, Kimera, Lite: Baltimore's Literary Newspaper, Lucid Rhythms, Mr. Cogito, New Hope International, Nostoc, Parnassus Literary Journal, Pennine Platform, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Poetry Nottingham, Psychopoetica, Raintown Review, Riverrun, Romantics Quarterly, Ship of Fools, Snakeskin, Sonnet Scroll, Staple, Sulphur River Literary Review, Tennessee Quarterly, The Barefoot Muse, The East River Review, The Eclectic Muse, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The London Magazine, The MacGuffin, The Monongahela Review, The Neovictorian/Cochlea, thehypertexts.com, The Pennsylvania Review, The Sarmatian Review, The Tennessee Review, Tucumcari Literary Review, Trinacria, Visions International, Weyfarers, Whelks Walk Review, Windsor Review, inter alia. He is editor of The New Formalist. More of his work can be found at Leo Yankevich.com.