Instructions for Finding a Place Where You Once Existed | Olga Rukovets

Olga Rukovets is a writer and editor living in New York City, where she was the 2018-2019 Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation Online Editorial Fellow at Poets & Writers Magazine. She received an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida. Her writing has appeared in Potomac Review, Passages North, Parcel, Jelly Bucket, 5X5, Breakwater Review, and elsewhere.     In MemoryWe cannot all be elephants:some of us leave our dead for the neighbors to bury,some of us learn to forget.When your sister drownsyou are still a child.You circle her small boneswith your own,cradle her bodyto shore.You wear grief daily like a protracted gown& your family herdsbehind,split in two, carrying your train on both sides.   *this poem first appeared in Passages North