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Tulips
by Dzvinia Orlowsky
What good is love?
My mother's hand shakes
as she offers it to me
for a goodnight kiss.
I know only hunger,
the wind between my ribs
that will not add weight,
the scales frozen;
heavenly body meant
for someone else.
She whispers: Ja Tebe Lybly.
I love you
into the phone
knowing an ocean heaves
between us, our blood
breathes daughter
mirrored into sister,
Father invisible,
calming the curtain;
proof he lives.
Each morning the vase
next to her mother's bed
darkens water into earth.
No one will find them there —
What is your favorite memory, Mother?
I can not paint it.
What is your favorite flower?
Two lips in the dark.
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Bio: Dzvinia Orlowsky is a founding editor of Four Way Books and the author of three poetry
collections including “Except for One Obscene Brushstroke” (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2004).
Her poetry and translations have appeared in numerous anthologies including “A Map of Hope: An
International Literary Anthology; From Three Worlds: New Writing from the Ukraine”; and “A Hundred
Years of Youth: A Bilingual Anthology” of 20th Century Ukrainian Poetry. She currently teaches at
the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College.
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