In my dreams I call

by Tatiana Retivov

In my dreams I call
Or try to call you
On some ancient phone
To tell you that
Your vote counted!
The scoundrel is gone.

But I cannot ever
Connect or reach you.
On the screen
An ancient telex
Streams endlessly.
Its cursor—a quixotic

Knight errant. Yesterday
Navalny was given 9 years.
And I tried again to call.
It was an old Motorola,
Not yet smart, its push buttons
Stubbornly slow to deliver.

Lines of text scroll
Aimlessly in search
Of a recipient. I try again
To tell you that Le Putain
Has run amok in his
Underground bunker.

But to no avail, you
Are not to be disturbed.
The silence is numbing.
Still, we connect, muted
We play tag with
Each other in my dreams.

Meanwhile, I am part
Of the exodus, cats and
Dogs torn asunder. Our home
Under risk of bombardment.
Your resting place threatened
As well, as all of Europe.

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Tatiana Retivov received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montana and an M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Michigan. She has lived in Kyiv, Ukraine since 1994, where she runs an Art & Literature Salon and a small publishing press, www.kayalabooks.com, that publishes prose, poetry, and non-fiction in Ukraine.