—June 1933, Ukraine, USSR. Holodomor.

We found refuge in the holes
dug for our children in the frigid dirt.
The holes-turned-graves insulated

our sons' and daughters' lively bodies.
It has been weeks since we have seen bread.
Today the soldiers came

to wheel bags of grain from the farmers.
There are bodies on the road—we gather
and eat whatever meat we can find

before the soldiers come to incinerate our
fathers, mothers, strangers. What use does a body become
once diminished to ash?

We fall into the cruel and tender act of eating kin
so that we can bathe in the Dnieper the next day.

Our fathers strangle their children
with newfound tears in this drought
to quicken Death's arrival.

Our milkless mothers shrink,
swell up, and weakn in their hips
so we cannot birth new sons and daughters.

We saw Stalin's daughter
plump. We watched the kacaps
eat bread from the grain we grew.