June 2023
Bio Note: I was born in the Soviet Union and came to the US as a refugee at the age of 16. I have a bachelor’s degree in Electrical engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University and a Ph. D. in Statistics from Cornell University. I am a student in the Fairleigh Dickinson University MFA in Creative Writing program, where I have been awarded the Mitch and Lynn Baumeister Scholarship. Currently, I am translating from Russian into English anti-war poetry that is being written at this time by poets living in Ukraine, Russia and Russian-speaking diaspora.
Leap
A nightmare is a powerful creature,
unpredictable, willful.
Approach her with respect, with skill,
for she may bite, kick, rear;
her strength sufficient
to leave anyone who touches her carelessly
broken, paralyzed, dead.
Yet she knows
how to accept a rider.
Balancing on the back of a nightmare,
riding a dark dream,
you can leap much farther
than is humanly possible.
A nightmare
can carry you
across an abyss
©2023 Yana Kane
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