In the Slips
Poets have always responded to war by writing poetry — it’s what we do. Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24th February this year people started sending The Friday Poem their poems about the war — poems about resistance, poems of protest, and poems about specific individuals affected by the fighting. These are stories of courage, grief and hope. We decided to publish some every week as Friday Poems for Ukraine. Here’s ‘In the Slips’ by Pratibha Castle. Slava Ukraini!
In the Slips
While the world watches
Violetta, clad in years
the measure of a week,
journeys from Odessa
with her doll and cat
and a Grandmother
her face a crumpled map
of lifetime drills
framed by a scarf
the colour of losing
urges a boy soldier
put this flower in your pocket
hopes his flesh
rotted into trampled mud
bone and blood
transmuted to
a claggy womb
will birth a crop
of smiling sunflowers
and men in black
as if spectators
at a cricket match
watch a tank
grizzle over cobblestones
across the city square
while a man
sprints into its path
scoops up a hand- grenade
underarms it
at a pile of rubble
the dog-end
dangling from his lip
a red-eyed fuse
