In the Absence of Clocks

Dear Father,

22 Dear Father, I know you are scared for me, but in Horlivka, it is not like you have heard. The beer still tastes like beer. The girls who serve it still trust their hips, like girls. True, the birds you notice are not like birds. They are soot and cinder. Spastic blacks, panics of sky. In Horlivka, 13 doves sit on factory wires and blacken. The 14th, a Crimean white, alights. Bored with leisure, he settles into the work of the town, turns to coal. I know you are scared for me. ...