Bak Solmay

If it’s love, you’ve got to tie the knot. Olga and Maksim have lived together for four years. They’re both thirty-five, but as is typical now, they look and seem nine years younger. This made Olga’s mother jealous, because twenty-seven years ago, at thirty-five, she was an exhausted adult with two kids, a dacha, and a husband. Her career had evaporated to the tune of raising kids, being a housewife, and helping her husband with his business, which she despised.

The population of Boveneinde was thinning. After Truden, more and more people became infected. The dungeons were so full that those marked by the disease were now exiled as soon as they were discovered. Men lost their wives, mothers lost their children. Evil had chosen them—they must have done something to deserve their fate.

Note on the second poem: This poem is prompted by paintings which Chinese artist Tang Song spent decades working on as a means of processing trauma, particularly the painting “After After Wine.”