Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan, 1997
⠀
Snow——the silence
within silences——
a flickering streetlamp——your gloved hand——⠀⠀
Р е м о н т scrawled in Cyrillic on an abandoned shack——
the good-night kiss——[⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ]
——then the small, fused heat of you
gone⠀⠀
& me
racing to my flat——so fast I cannot drown——
Kurt Olsson has published two award-winning poetry collections, Burning Down Disneyland (Gunpowder Press) and What Kills What Kills Us (Silverfish Review Press). His third collection, The Unnumbered Anniversaries, is due out later in 2025 from Fernwood Press. Olsson’s poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The New Republic, Southern Review, and The Threepenny Review. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.