He’s never murdered anyone before,
but there she sits, a flightless butterfly
waiting for him to flutter, fumbling for
his touch. She loves him, and she wants to die.
Each time they see each other is a war,
and each time, doing nothing, he will win.
Her hopeless eyes, too gentle to ignore,
accuse his heart without accusing.

And she’ll move on. He knows she’ll be gone.
Any day she’ll run into someone
whose pulse will synchronize with hers.
But even jealousy won’t break the spell
of his indifference. This is his curse.
This Via Dolorosa ends in hell.

ANTON YAKOVLEV’S latest chapbook is Chronos Dines Alone, winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize (SurVision Books, 2018). He is the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Measure, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and elsewhere.