Nina Kossman: The Bomb

A bomb said to a city:
“I’m falling.”

The city asked:
“Whose side are you on?”

The bomb said:
“I take no sides. I’m falling.”

The city said:
“Look around you.”

The bomb said:
“Too late.”

The city did not say anything.

Nina Kossman is a bilingual writer, poet, translator of Russian poetry, painter, and playwright. Among her published works are three books of poems in Russian and in English, two volumes of translations of Tsvetaeva’s poems, two books of short stories, an anthology she put together and edited for Oxford University Press, and a novel. Her work has been translated into Greek, Japanese, Hebrew, Spanish, Persian, and Dutch. She lives in New York.

Poem and image copyright 2021 Nina Kossman. All rights reserved.