Odesa

by M. BENJAMIN THORNE

Four years of war, and life still cleaves
to routine, a battered normalcy.
On Prymorskyi Boulevard: the searing 
scent of coffee carts and perfume;
fairy-floss hovers diaphanous pink 
clouds barely there at all but
the sugar burns on the tongue. 

Streams of lacey vapor
the odor of burnt garlic
white phosphorus bombs flare
the shouts of children play

around the Holocaust memorial
Prokhorovsky Square the vendors
with their matryoshka little dolls,
bodies stacked on top of bodies.

Shells litter Arcadia Beach,
Black Sea foams meerschaum. It floats
on white-capped waves, gives way
to bone shards cresting black earth.

Still the luminous crowds gather
at dusk, still the eternal fight rages
between classical and techno-pop;
they gossip and quarrel and love
a gamble a shell game moving
targets daring to live.

–

M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. A recipient of nominations for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, his poems appear or are forthcoming in Sontag Mag, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Bleating Thing, Sein und Werden, and Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought. In 2026 he won the Rough Diamond Poetry Award and Lazuli Literary Prize. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.

© M. Benjamin Thorne