Surely, I must turn a new leaf.
I am a new leaf turning . . .
—Henri Coulette
One to a cell, some thirty to a block,
they spend long hours staring at the clock,
while all their constant motions and appeals
go nowhere, nowhere, and their three square meals
are left untouched. There’s simply no relief
for these dead enders at the Château d’If.
And so they do their time, their months of yearning.
Turn a new leaf . . . A new leaf turning . . .
from The Hudson Review
Born in Odessa in the Ukraine, Boris Dralyuk is a literary translator and the executive editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA, where he taught Russian literature for a number of years. He has also taught at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His new book of poems is My Hollywood.