When my bare feet
Step on the marble floor
Of any given temple
In any given country
To the south from China,
My husband says
‘You don’t know
All the people who were
Here before you.
I will wait outside.’
I am holding the sandals
Swaying in my hand.
People pray there.
Sometimes they whisper.
Sometimes - sing.
But most often
They don’t even open lips.
I have never been
Of the church-type,
But temples do make me totally speechless,
Then turn me into the storyteller,
And finally - make me come back
To see the dawn breaking and getting scattered
On the white tiles lined with black.
‘Wanna get some breakfast?’ - he asks
Smiling, while I am fastening the sandal clasp.
Author Bio:
Yuliia Vereta is a young writer from Ukraine, who is creating essays, fiction, and poetry that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. Currently lives and works in China. Holds the Master of Arts in Translation. The majority of her works reveal sharp social issues, moral crimes, and emotional struggle.
Her other works were published in 2019 in Salmon Creek Literary Journal, Penultimate Peanut Magazine and Litro Magazine. She received the 2018 City of Rockingham Short Story Award for short fiction and became the finalist in 2019 Poetry Matters Project as well as 2019 Hessler Poetry Contest.
Step on the marble floor
Of any given temple
In any given country
To the south from China,
My husband says
‘You don’t know
All the people who were
Here before you.
I will wait outside.’
I am holding the sandals
Swaying in my hand.
People pray there.
Sometimes they whisper.
Sometimes - sing.
But most often
They don’t even open lips.
I have never been
Of the church-type,
But temples do make me totally speechless,
Then turn me into the storyteller,
And finally - make me come back
To see the dawn breaking and getting scattered
On the white tiles lined with black.
‘Wanna get some breakfast?’ - he asks
Smiling, while I am fastening the sandal clasp.
Author Bio:
Yuliia Vereta is a young writer from Ukraine, who is creating essays, fiction, and poetry that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. Currently lives and works in China. Holds the Master of Arts in Translation. The majority of her works reveal sharp social issues, moral crimes, and emotional struggle.
Her other works were published in 2019 in Salmon Creek Literary Journal, Penultimate Peanut Magazine and Litro Magazine. She received the 2018 City of Rockingham Short Story Award for short fiction and became the finalist in 2019 Poetry Matters Project as well as 2019 Hessler Poetry Contest.
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