The first years of their exile,
tell the children about unheated train stations,
the bravery of mothers breathing warmth
on tiny fingers.

Later will be time to describe the sound of sunflowers
landing on coffin lids,
hundreds of golden petals
falling on a mother
and her two children
who ran for their lives,
but not fast enough
after which the noise
of an engine roaring into a station
will seem only a fairy tale, a television show
about the endless winter of ’22 in Ukraine.