Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Natalka Bilotserkivets

THE WATER NYMPH

A water nymph is weeping under Dnipro River bridges at night— Summer’s already passing. Love has passed, a cigarette in her hand burning to the end— But it won’t quite burn out. In three years, four—I’ll open my window onto the Dnipro, I’ll get up at midnight: The cigarette’s still burning, like blood on fire, Above the bridges.

A hundred years passed, my eyes rose up In an underground hurricane, Like your fingers that held me and her, That burned all the way to your shoulders.

Eternity after eternity the old cigarette kept falling, and sadly, as though Beneath the unbridges of the now un-Dnipro river A water nymph is weeping.

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