Poetry Week 2026 Runner-up:
BY IRENA PASVINTER
First published in Mad Swirl in March 2026. Copyright is held by the author.
In the bomb-shelter, on a plastic stool,
with my back to the cement wall,
as the neighbours discuss the latest news
I stare at our house, from above.
I rise up and now it’s the whole town
reflected in my mind’s eye,
and I zoom out,
zoom out,
zoom out . . .
Our eight-storey is just a pimple now.
And I imagine I’m a rocket,
rushing down at us from the sky.
Come on, we live in this tiny pimple —
if I were a rocket, I’d just fly by.
And then what? If they don’t intercept me . . .
Boom! The walls shudder but all is well.
Thank god for the sturdy bomb-shelter.
Welcome to the lottery from hell.
***
Irena Pasvinter divides her time between software engineering, family, and writing. Her stories and poems have appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Fiction on the Web, Mad Swirl, CommuterLit, and many other literary magazines. Her poem “Psalm 3.14159…” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is currently looking for a publisher for her first novel while working on her second. More at https://sites.google.com/site/ipscribblings.
Fantastic.