At Third Place Books this afternoon. Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets caught my eye, resulting in this:

Oh Svetlana
dressed in solemn red
a half-hearted
show of support
for the brigade

Tree tops dip
with the bluster
of the storm

Rain always comes
when you look out the window

You once felt protected
that’s why you stayed

‘So long ago’
was a dream

This is not a dream

Oh Svetlana
solemn red burning on the pyre

A haze forms over the ceremony
not one tear falls
from your eyes

(9 May 2018)