The Penelope Review

Mom’s salad smells like hands enslaved by black earth
Bones are hidden deep in the garden

Mom’s salad smells of nothing and the sun doesn’t rise
Rains in the sky have learned patience

Silence has been reinvented in the kitchen
And the threshold is overgrown with moss-cemetery

Mykyta Ryzhykh is an author from Ukraine, now living in Tromsø, Norway. Nominated for Pushcart Prize 2023, 2024. Published many times in literary magazines іn Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal.