poetry Two Years Later

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach knows more than a thing or two about Ukraine wars, way more to mark the passage of its second anniversary.

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach Rattle
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Two Years Later

By Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

The last thing I want is another poem 

about war and dead children and how 

we’ve forgotten their names. 

My children are learning to count: bones 

and wars and dead children and how 

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many days are left, Now? they ask, now? 

My children are learning to count bones–

twenty-seven in the hand, twenty-two in the skull.   

Many days are left now. They ask, now? 

The last thing I want is to imagine them dead,  

twenty-seven, twenty-two, their hands, their skulls.

I keep counting to make sure they’re all there.     

The last thing I want is to imagine the dead  

we’ve forgotten. Their names, 

I keep counting to make sure. They’re all there.  

The last thing I want is another poem.

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, Don't Touch the Bones, and 40 WEEKS (YesYes Books, 2023). Julia’s work has appeared in POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. Recent awards include Hunger Mountain's Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, Michigan Quarterly Review's Prize in Nonfiction, and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University.