Wartime

A. Molotkov

Remember what they
called childhood: the breeze,
summer garden, my blue

toy horse? Will you
wait for me? you

asked. Orange
juice, orange
sun. The red

flower smelled
like you. Alarm

on your face, shadow
on the lawn. Your
destroyed body. I’ll

wait for you in
my unmarked forest grave.

A. Molotkov is an immigrant writer. His poetry collections are “The Catalog of Broken Things,” “Application of Shadows,” “Synonyms for Silence” and “Future Symptoms”. His novel “A Slight Curve” and his memoir “A Broken Russia Inside Me” are forthcoming; he co-edits The Inflectionist Review. His collection of ten short stories, “Interventions in Blood,” is part of Hawaii Review Issue 91; his prose is represented by Laura Strachan at Strachan Lit. Please visit him at AMolotkov.com