Turbines of Hydroelectric Plants

by Lesyk Panasiuk
Translated by Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris
Photograph by Li Anne Liew

Trees poke their crowns out of the water
like wounds
open in the riverskin.

In flooded villages’
small homes—to which no one, no one, no one returns—
how lucky are our dead: they do not see these streets submerged, do not see

hydroelectric turbines
transform
the geography of childhood, transform

the names of relatives into electric energy
transform each day

into a day of the dead, just enough
to turn on the light—

when you return from work turn on
the light:

darkness
how it

hesitates, before
leaving.

—Bucha, Ukraine

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