"New Year in Vishnyowka" by Valzhyna Mort

Snow glints and softens/ a pig's slaughter.

Support Poem-a-Day February 17, 2020   New Year in Vishnyowka Valzhyna Mort                             (a lullaby) Snow glints and softens a pig's slaughter. Mama refuses another  drink, mama  agrees to another drink. On the wall—a carpet with peonies, their purple mouths                              suck me into sleep. Small,          I've been bedded.                                              Toasts from across the wall,                        my lullabies.  Mama says no-no-no  to more drink. My bed smells of valenky.  Without taking its eyes off me a cat  licks its grey paw as if sharpening a knife. Mama yells yes to another drink. Mama's breasts are too big to fit into packed morning buses. There's uncertainty                                      I would grow into a real person. But on a certain day  in Vishnyowka,  a pig is slaughtered, mama whispers yes  yes yes yes  to more drink, I'm vanishing into the peonies' throats, peonies smell of valenky,                                   of pig's blood on the snow. * Clock's hands leave a strange ski track. Copyright © 2020 by Valzhyna Mort. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 17, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. "In Belarus, we never sip vodka. Vodka is gulped, always following a toast—a magic spell of adulthood. This poem occurs in a small village of Vishnyowka (this is its literary debut) on New Year's Eve, a portal of timelessness where the past and the future meet. As what could have been a pagan sacrifice, a pig has been slaughtered by a joyful bunch of accountants and long-distance drivers. A city child is half-asleep in a strange village house; the cat, the rug on the wall, the snow with blood and ski tracks on it, the voices from the table, everything has taken on mythical, magical proportions." —Valzhyna Mort   Valzhyna Mort's third poetry collection, Music for the Dead and Resurrected, is forthcoming in November 2020 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she teaches at Cornell University. Music for the Dead and Resurrected (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020)  "The Cause of All My Suffering" by Laura Kasischke read more "They Sail Across the Mirrored Sea" by Wendy Chen read more Thanks to Roger Reeves, author of King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read an extended Q&A about Reeves' curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Make a one-time contribution to help us publish Poem-a-Day.   Make your support go further by enrolling in monthly giving and joining the Mug Club! Copyright © 2020 The Academy of American Poets, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: The Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane St #901 New York, NY 10038 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.