Ploughshares to Swords

Sasha Burshteyn

bison, mouflon, and red deer

roam the Pavlohrad plant grounds

trucked in to prove disarmament

safe for living beings

they thrive, we thrive

the maxim of the plant

which decommissions

armaments

abandoned

by soviet dissolution

great kilns liquify

petal mines

the size and shape

of children’s toys

into explosives

which clear tunnels

for Donbas coal

now rumors circulate of storks

plucking new-seeded petals

from churned earth, thinking them food

Sasha Burshteyn is a poet and a 2022 92NY Discovery Contest winner. Her writing appears in The Paris Review Daily, Copper Nickel, Four Way Review, and elsewhere.
Originally published:
October 11, 2023

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