the next day will be harder.

He will cry more, much more

having learned what it means

to be apart. He will cling to you

like soaking clothing, and once

off your body, he will become

a fish wrenching back

towards water, your face

a fresh lake, his mouth

gasping to drink.

Other women don’t tell you

apart

means a part of you

is always drowning

—

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. Julia is the author of The Many Names for Mother, winner of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, Sept. 2019), as well as the chapbook The Bear Who Ate the Stars. Her newest poems appear in POETRY, Nashville Review, TriQuarterly, and Waxwing. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Julia is the Editor-in-Chief of Construction Magazine and writes a blog about motherhood.