* * *

it’s morning it’s grey it’s morning it’grey it’s
morning it’s grey i fantasize i fall asleep i
fantasize i fall asleep a kicked car a
kicked car a kicked car a woman gets her
hair cut gets her hair cut and i leave i’m
warm it’s morning and it’s green it’s green
I am sick and two guys no a guy a girl and
in the street I know about the street just
like not being born i can hear but cant see
shadow freckle color deep scratches on
the skin radiator sky blowing though me i am
a building i am an elephant a sardine a
car starting but not the people smiling not
the warm open door the day that is not on
the calendar the day cannot be seen on
the calendar the dog barks construction
continues the river burns underground it is
bright white thats why its scary it burns
bright white branching networking
singing i sleep through it i get tired of it i
don’t pick up the telephone i dont write it
down i let people die when they weren’t
finished speaking when they werent done
seeing from before i began something too
i began and i was pretty and thats all i
was pretty and thats all i fed a duck and i
got up and i walked some more and
nothing moved i forgot and i didnt call and
thats why it was scary because it burned
underneath everything when nothing was
going on

The Golden World

dont you want to tear up the flower
so that it can build the airport again

dont you want to slowly pour out the cup
full of the little golden fish
making tunnels in the water

you sent me a bit of a poem
about moonlit laughter
I forgot the poem for many years
one day a train came to take me to poland
the floor was covered in sunflower seed shells
the sun fired into my stomach and I died an old man
I was a television
I watched the latest games, and the grass
fields rose up to play the games of
monsters

you can buy it
for the cost of ten years
and then the dreams you would have seen
would protect you for ever
dreams of odd numbers?

I forgot

we dont need a poet
because we dont need a country
we dont need that feeling
because we dont have a heart

I dont understand the police sirens I dont understand the
suicides I dont understand the theater district with its proprietor
names in lights i dont understand the smokestacks
on the outskirts of the city and the low ugly
houses surrounding them and the road which
goes into a red place in the sky the happiness
on people’s faces the photographs. I dont know
about the police suicides. the discount injections.
recycled christmas trees. old women’s basement
apartments. the clothes of girls.

alive plants inside dead plants outside.
warm people inside cold ones out on the
street which is so straight they can barely
walk. an insanely bent and radioactive
metal around which love timidly
flowers / the same but a little grey. five
year olds making deductions about planes
which smoke like rainbows over vegetable
stalls. soft heads of particles glowing in the
light of the sign networking and branching in a
golden way in winter on a cold day with
nothing to do but look at the colors.

if your heart closes, and your eyes go numb
does that make the sun well?
can you vacuum
the blood from the head
so that it shines?
joy to the world
and a quiet different sound
are you betraying the hands?
the hands make the sun well

people cant stop
so I will have to stop making them with my mind
then I will feel tired
lay my hands down over the glittering heap
something in the sky will die
child leopard leaping away in soft blind dimension

when I think of how much money we have
love doesnt make sense
when we watch certain movies
love makes sense
I give you some ice cream
and you wait

быт _становится _потайным
город _становится _чужим

we will stop killing animals one day
and my hair will turn black again
we won’t say “squirrel” or “raccoon”, “cat” or “cow”
animals won’t be sweet anymore

I hope when I die
I can watch a movie of my childhood
lasting ten years
everything I forgot my mom said to me
in the park or on our way

statistics and machines
the mathematics of the visible world
I forgot to believe that cleanliness is not god
that cats are better than dogs
people used to drink from rivers
and knowledge is a river
starred with numbers

what you remember
is changing
the line like the tide also grows older with you
so it’s right to remember what you can today
the phone makes sound
when the other hangs up
the ones who died
emptiness in the sound

“I am a shadow far from darkening villages. I drank the silence of God Out of the stream in the
trees. Cold metal walks on my forehead. Spiders search for my heart. It is a light that goes out
in my mouth. At night, I found myself on a pasture, Covered with rubbish and the dust of stars.”

Lena Tsykynovska lives in Chicago, IL. She is the author of The Last Days of My Boyhood (Light Rail, 2025) and the chapbook The Golden World, forthcoming from The Year.