Features

Nyavka brushes her flowered hair 

With her comb of bone

And adjusts the dark strands

To cover her ears 

And exposed spine. 

The lumbar of her back

Is especially sensitive

To the touch of a traveling 

Man. 

You are not appealing

With those uncovered,

Said mother. A broken 

Record, when those have yet 

To be invented. 

Sisters Mavka and Rusalka, 

Older and wiser,

Are met every day. 

Journeying home, 

Their men forever stay. 

Our Easter approaches, 

Says mother,

And you are expected

To play with the travelers 

And make your case. 

And so Luna comes and goes, 

Dragging her dress of stolen flax and 

Woven thin cloth behind her,

Pulling along a new morning. 

The demon soon announces himself 

With his June flute, and festivities 

Commence in the dampened 

Mountain caves. 

Nyavka breaks away

To hide in the water 

Nestled in the forest below, 

Where a traveler looks

For shelter. 

Nyavka brushes her flowered hair 

With her comb of bone,

When a delicate hand rests upon 

Her turned lumbar. 

It is especially sensitive 

To the touch of a traveling 

Man.

But the traveler

Is anything but. 

Alexandra Donsky's poem won second prize in the Eleventh Annual Humanities & Sciences Undergraduate Writing Contest. She is a second-year Animation major whose artistic projects often touch on themes of culture, sexuality, disability, and overall identity. When she’s not obsessively organizing or planning out every idea that comes to mind, you can find her reading a new book or fixating on a show you wouldn’t expect her to enjoy.