Karina Borowicz

Karina Borowicz studied writing at Bard College and went on to earn a BA in History at the University of Massachusetts, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire. Borowicz spent five years teaching English in Russia and Lithuania, and has translated poetry from Russian and French. Her first collection of poetry, The Bees Are Waiting (2012), won the Marick Press Poetry Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry and the First Horizon Award.

September Tomatoes

The whiskey stink of rot has settled

in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises 

when I touch the dying tomato plants. 

Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms

flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots 

and toss them in the compost. 

It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready

to let go of summer so easily. To destroy

what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.

Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.

My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village 

as they pulled the flax. Songs so old

and so tied to the season that the very sound

seemed to turn the weather.

— Karina Borowicz