Orpheus

                 But really this whole story
has a backstory, and it is about
a kid who was afraid of water.
But he would still go with everyone to the beach and clamber up
the long rock,
and when the boys jumped into the sea, he stayed behind,
standing there, skinny and lost,
                 and watched them grow distant,
their heads in ruffles of splashes,
with the single hope —
that none of them look back.
And then he would head for the nearby
buildings, slashing thistle heads, helpless,
                different from everyone else here —
resembling a copper string, accidentally
weaved into a basket.
You know this kid?
You know at what point
music comes out of anger, like a butterfly
emerging out of a frostbitten cocoon?
You know where he was until morning, when
his parents found him in the grass, sweaty,
                 with clenched teeth?
And tell me this: how much anger can a poem hold?
Just enough to
drown out the sirens?


(Translated from the Ukrainian by Anton Tenser and Tatiana Filimonova)