Photograph by Amy Hart
after William E. Stafford
a ballistic missile strikes:
apartment complex
historic center
hospital
publishing house
school
a baby wails
an orange cat runs
a father falls to his knees
this night
every night
odesa
sumy
kharkiv
lviv
your cousin & his cat
crouch in an unlit hallway
your cousin & her daughter
remain asleep in their bed
your sister & her dog
run screaming into the garden
at dawn in the United States
you will hide
the news
from your mother
your father
why does no one bother
hiding you from it?
smoke
flames
a twisted charred body
on a street you walked
six years ago
wasn’t the sky so clear
the sun very warm
the ice cream you licked
dripping
onto
your fingers?
Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Belfast Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, Euromaidan Press, Chytomo, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University, and is the Humanities Coordinator at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College. She also serves as a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Southern Review of Books. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth (2023), is available from Alien Buddha Press and her chapbook Have Your Eyes is available from Dancing Girl Press (2025).