There are mirrors
Which reflect not only our image
But other mirrors, where we are also reflected, so
it seems we walk among a collection of ourselves, each identical
But subtly different in some way
We can’t quite catch and each
with the same smile or bemused look. In Prague
I walked among a maze
With you and felt your hand,
Small and intimate as an anemone
With the sea in mine,
Fingers, pale fronds sifting the light. From
Behind walls of mirrors and balsa wood
We heard
Human voices
A dog barking and the city itself
A long sibilant hiss,
The wind among birches
I thought
I held the key in my hand
The keys that chimed
That day in Wenceslas Square,
As people rang
For freedom to come,
Or at least the choice
To be a partial slave and see
The reflection of your voice
As liberty,
But it was nothing in the end
Except daylight
Stringent as redemption
Recesses
Of birch and bracken
Where your tongue
Is mine.
Steve Komarnyckyj is a British Ukrainian poet whose work has appeared in Acumen, Envoi, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Modern Poetry in Translation. His book of translations from Ukrainian poet Pavlo Tychyna was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2012.