Dacha by Olga Rukovets

Dacha

We were trying
 
 to get to Narnia.

The four of us,
 
 pressed for time,
 
 huddled in a wardrobe

in upstate New York
 
 where we spent summers
 
 away from parents
 
 and stuffy Brooklyn.

We were mad
 
 when the world
 
 wouldn’t move us

and we passed blame
 
 around like table salt.

Our grandmas sat in the other room
 
 in floral robes as fitted as hospital gowns
 
 and discussed our appetites.Soon, they would call us back

 to the old world
 
 for dinner.

Olga Rukovets is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Florida. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in Passages North (forthcoming), Jelly Bucket, 5X5, Mixed Fruit, Opium Magazine, The Fiddleback, and elsewhere.

"Dacha" was chosen as a finalist for the 2015 Peseroff Prize. Judge Jill McDonough admired "the quick time and space travel, vividly sketching a recurring moment from a real, felt childhood in just a few lines."