Lia Purpura, Parasol Mushroom (detail), featured in AGNI 102
A Minibus of Volunteers
The tent is a punching bag for the wind.
The field—a soggy billiard table,
bulging, blotched with mold.
The defenseless warmth of a cowshed,
a generator in an abandoned church.
In the shade, the lingering snow—
little piles of tarnished silver fur.
Through nights chocked with stars
and winter sobriety,
longing rises like a stallion’s excited penis,
but there are only boulders and trees around.
The moon floats
like a boiled catfish head
in a murky broth of simmering rags.
The mood: Titanic tickets burn against your chest,
and still you cannot help but sail.
Soon this land is going to sink as well.
The question is—who’s first?
Go on, draw a smiley with your finger
on the misted glass.
The minibus of volunteers makes its way
through the crocodile face of dawn,
thumps the gray mercury of a new day
where drones like banshees screech
at high frequencies,
sensing the smell of people, the noise of machinery.
Prayers mix with cynicism,
text messages from relatives,
rays of sunshine.
A gentle, persistent nail biter, equals a face biter,
probes every one of you,
sly like a Cheshire cat as it drawls out its greeting:
Not a good morrrrrrrrrrning
Dmitry Blizniuk
Dmitry Blizniuk is the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). His most recent poems have appeared in Poetry, Five Points, Rattle, Los Angeles Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Plume, The London Magazine, and elsewhere. He has received the RHINO Translation Prize, been runner-up in the Gregory O’Donoghue Competition, and been named a finalist for the Gabo Prize. Blizniuk, who lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine, is a volunteer with the European charity fund Chervona Kalyna, which supports refugees, internally displaced persons, large families, and the Ukrainian military. (updated 1/2026)
Sergey Gerasimov
Sergey Gerasimov’s stories and poems written in English have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, J Journal, The Bitter Oleander, Acumen, and elsewhere. His books include Feuerpanorama: Ein ukrainisches Kriegstagebuch (Fire Panorama: A Ukrainian War Diary; dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022) and Oasis (Gypsy Shadow, 2018). He lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (updated 1/2026)