In the Name of All Funeral Wreaths and Plastic Ribbons

In the name of every funeral wreath,
every plastic-tied ribbon,
fluttering like a flag of convenience on a container ship of copses,
in the name of every shellacked coffin
and the lacquered shoes they jam onto the dead—
too swollen, too stiff for the twist—
/yes to that twist
/of the torso
/of that day
/of the wrist—

Why do I imagine them dancing?
The dead.
Still warm from the blast.
Still wearing their Sunday shirts inside-out.
Some uncle with a hole in his head,
some cousin missing the lower chord of her left leg—
dancing the twist
swinging those patent leather shoes in their hands
like censored metaphors.

We name streets after them,
parks, squares, alleys.
We prop up monuments in their names
until the central squares are choked with granite grief.
A monument here, another there—
like chess pieces left mid-match
on a marble board slick with rain.

In peacetime—
and isn't that the word we keep pawing like a wound we can't reach—
children might one day play hide and seek
among these monuments.
But not now.
Not in two years,
not five,
not forty,
unless the plaza of statues
(these stone bushes we pretend are memory)
outlasts the next blitz.

Meanwhile, the war creeps up from the north,
shuffles in from the south,
pounds in eastward, drunk on diesel and history.
We rename, rename, 
rename—
spray new names onto playground walls,
onto kindergarten gates—
on scalps of cities shaved bare.
As if to say: we remember.
As if to say: this matters.
As if we weren't always
thirty seconds behind the shelling.

No time to rename each block.
No time for every boy to get a bronze.

So we stuff their names into 
our emergency suitcase:

The flashlight? 
Kokurin Serhii Viktorovych.

The transistor radio?
Andriuk Yevhen Oleksandrovych.

The first aid kit?
Horbenko Sviatoslav Serhiiovych.
…………………………………………………

We carry our dead
like unpaid debts
into evacuation.
Leave behind the albums of Soviet summers,
dog-bitten Pushkins,
grandma's notebook of recipes and grudges—
for the looter to lift 
like a lid off a casserole dish—

/& they will dance
/yes they’ll twist
/yes they'll jive in boots not theirs
/to the crackle and pop 
of old vinyl from grandma’s music collection.