Somewhere There is a War

by Meghan Sterling

But not in New York. I come to New York in dreams 

sometimes, the Empire State Building a monolith of steel, 

colored yellow and blue for a day to honor the invasion of Ukraine, 

a fact which is happening a thousand miles away from the bars 

and jazz and gelato, the mile long line for a late-night pizza  

at Ben’s. The streets are a sea of masks, all of us in our black 

coats and shoes and cloth over our mouths like gags. For a few 

days, we vacation with this million-dollar view—silver high rises 

and rows of staggered buildings in shades of brick and beige 

like striated dunes in the Sonoran Desert. While Ukraine quakes 

and trembles, here we are besieged by all the small decisions: 

Where to get coffee. Move the car now or wait until after dinner. 

Go out for pastries, or bring them back to this king-sized bed heaped 

with a high thread-count, this view of a city that is not being bombed.

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“I think war is a trauma that lives in our bones, gets passed down to the next generation as a kind of constant vigilance. I saw the way my grandparents were shaped by war and that has shaped me. The war in Ukraine, which is the land my ancestors fled, has brought it back—the stories, the landscape, the fear. Writing it down lets me look at it again, unearth the bones, examine them, keep myself awake.” —Meghan Sterling

Meghan Sterling (she, her, hers) lives in Maine. Her work is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Rhino Poetry, Nelle, Poetry South, and many others. These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books, 2021) was an Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Finalist. Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions), Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize) are all forthcoming in 2023.