BROWSE Columns
✕
At an abandoned checkpoint
the sandbags wilt. Ratty camo net straggles
on scattered tyres.
Hedgehogs doze, fluffy with barbed wire.
The STOP CONTROL sign tips amongst weeds.
So tired. So far from the front. So
day five hundred and fifty seven.
Waiting white as a tourniquet.
The sunflowers droop east.
A KrAZ-6322 military truck overtakes
the Poltava-Kharkiv bus.
Hedgehogs creep into the road.
Live checkpoint. Territorial Defence
girl, scruffy with the heat,
squints at identity documents.
Sister, we are who we are,
who we have been all our lives,
since the war began.
Photograph by Mehmet Orak
Anna Bowles is a freelance editor and activist who divides her time between London and east Ukraine. She began writing poetry in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion and has been published in Magma, Orbis, Poetry Salzburg, The Four-Faced Liar and others, as well as placing in a number of regional competitions. Read more at annabowles.substack.com.
