Brilliant Pebbles

by Mark Yakich

Ukraine is a nation of one
official millionaire, a song for
hirsute ladies, a maritime agency
providing crew.

Ukraine is a what?
Ukraine is being blundered
by foreign words, as ugly
as a road diverting

gas, doing the splits, guilty
of the Black Sea. Of course,
Ukraine is ready to acknowledge
its debt, obligated to marry

Belarus, who is humped at her
shoulders and likes to pinch her ex’s
uranium. Ukraine is about
how a boy tries

to lose his way of life by accepting
Europe’s birthright. Or how
a girl in a village in Africa,
surrounded by water,

gives out humanitarian
blowjobs and banners
made of two equal, horizontal
blue and yellow fields. Ukraine
is that large—the largest—country
nobody can find on a map;
the world’s #7 arms exporter;
well-adapted to endure

cold piss, copyrighted;
pleased to present America in new
sanguine flavors. Ukraine
is preparing for

the Chechnyan vaccination:
stronger than venison, a nice
piece of ash, a joy
to rape, a support group

for youngsters obsessed
with 19th-century Russian
poets. Ukraine is safe to sink.
The nozzle through which

puke is forced, the towel
from which it’s wrung. And now
available in your area
far away from home.

Ukraine is not a nut,
but you can give it to a monkey.
Ukraine is the most beautiful
winch in the English language

from which to hang yourself.
Ukraine is that bony, that crooked,
that spelt out. Ukraine is
Ukraine minus any other.

Mark Yakich lives in Oakland. His first collection, Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross, was published by Penguin this spring. E-mail: mark@markyakich.com