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Yet another Puerto Rican Buddhist. He wants to breathe in peace, while keeping his rice- and-beans cooking skills, his accent, his blue jeans from the Santana years, his wine and rum collections housed inside his head. Today’s lesson: fireflies know they’re grasshoppers’ illusory stars. And that Puerto Rico is only a comma in Time’s poem…

In Mexico we danced on the edge where the saguaro cacti stood up like billboards of cactus in the Persian blue twilight     of Tucson— ah, the desert in bloom lizards with space-gear helmets on our sill and we in our deck chairs taking the winter sun! Nothing to do but listen to wind in…

translated from the Ukrainian by Lisa Sapinkopf and the author It could be dawn. The light, crumpled like sheets. The ashtray full. A shadow multiplies on four walls. The room is empty. No witnesses. But someone was here. A moment ago twin tears shimmered On polished wood (Did a couple live here?) In the armchair…

The anesthetist seems to bounce off the walls. It is very late. As if underground The trolley with my daughter crawls With her ruined appendix. Wide and blue The gowned anesthetist’s speech is strange. As he pats each wall, words flash from true. His accent is thick as the paint’s veined white On the glimmering…

Since my chronic bad luck Vanished in my love’s deck of cards, I step around them softly, I won’t open the window on windy days. I unpin her long black hair And strip down her dress myself, Lest their flutter stirs the dead air And make the cards fly. I tell her, Don’t even think…

translated from the Ukrainian by Lisa Sapinkopf and the author   O conductor of candles!                                    Eyes shimmer with reflections . . . Black web of shadows, break apart for an instant— Yes, for just the single gesture with which he tears off his gloves I’d accept even more than my earthly travails! Conductor of…

Nothing is like the theater. Backstage, with eighty children I fight through wastes of plastic bags to youthful refugees. They drop hairpins, lose their shirts or ask for biscuits, Play guessing games or scrap till they are needed. The oldest cries. The youngest, in a corner, Intent as God, smears blue above her eyes.  …

My chicken soup thickened with pounded young almonds. My blend of winter greens. Dearest tagliatelle with mushrooms, fennel, anchovies, Tomatoes and vermouth sauce. Beloved monkfish braised with onions, capers And green olives. Give me your tongue tasting of white beans and garlic, Sexy little assortment of formaggi and frutta. I want to drown with you…