Pripyat/Moscow (1986)
IRMA KISS-BARATH
My hands stayed crimped for
months, bracing for another wave.
No medicine for that, only
wickedness, cool and contained:
Rippling in foreign suits and
leather shoes, such as
are impossible to come by.
Pity the nation,
our fire blooming
outwards like a smile. The cars
that came to freight us out
rusted in our laps. They
were blue,
the color of my nightgown
when he left. He was summoned,
the receiver
plucking him from bed—
that he left willing.
The town pillowed underneath
the burning plant. It exhaled
onto all those outside,
the women; children; animals
sparkling like candy. I stayed in
the flat, but it did not matter
much. Loving the compound
made no difference.
What better bookend
for a marriage
than this: the buildings
The hospital smelled sweet
at first, like a drying fruit
rind—but the bodies soured
quickly.
Sunday morning and I could not touch
him without pain.
Skin came off when I lifted his
one sheet,
that held him firm to the
bedframe
like a shoebill’s
mouth.
Patches bloomed all over him,
his whole body swelling
like a rising loaf. His corpse
was barefoot at the funeral, feet too
bloated to be dressed.
Three months later,
the baby was born.
Natashenka
Her liver, rising,
had twenty-eight
roentgen.
Her heart soon opened
like a wet butterfly. She
inhaled only
four
hours,
sloughing the naked pink self,
falling, finally,
like so much lead
Irma Kiss-Barath is a high school student from Vancouver, BC, where she was born to Hungarian immigrants. Her work has appeared in wide-eyed magazine and The Blue Marble Review and has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and 1455 Literary Arts. She is an Adroit Summer Program mentee in the 2020 cycle.
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