In the face of evidence, cursor on
the text, I declare my belief
that the earth is a flat round
people on the outer rim safer than
people close to the center
that the world’s made of parts
people from our part safer than
people outside it
that a body’s made of surfaces
outer surfaces may implode
get consumed by the inner
that diseases are sent by a god
they come in a jar
wrapped in a coil of snake
bat patagium, a rat tail
Oksana Maksymchuk is a poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her poetry appeared in Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Sugar House Review, and other journals. She was awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. Most recently, she co-translated Lyuba Yakimchuk’s Apricots of Donbas and Marianna Kiyanovska’s The Voices of Babyn Yar. Oksana holds a PhD in philosophy from Northwestern University.
