Andrei Voznesensky
My Achilles Heart

In these days of unheard-of suffering
One is lucky indeed to have no heart:
Crack-shots plug me again and again,
But have no luck.

Riddled with holes, I laugh
At the furious pack: “Tally-ho, boys!
I am a lattice. Look through me.
Isn’t the landscape lovely?”

But suppose a gun should locate,
Tied by an aching thread,
Beating a hair’s breadth off target,
My Achilles heart.

Beware, my darling. Hush. Not a sound,
While I charge noisily
From place to place around Russia,
As a bird diverts the hunters from its nest.

Are you still in pain? Do you act up at night?
This defenseless extra is what saves me.
Do not handle it roughly;
The shudder would bring me down.

Our destruction is unthinkable,
More unthinkable what we endure,
More unthinkable still that a sniper
Should ever sever the quivering thread.

Translated by W. H. Auden