«Still yesterday he met my gaze, / But now his eyes are darting shiftly! / Till birdsong at first light he stayed, — / Now larks are crows, met with hostility! So I am stupid, you are wise, / You live, I lie dumbstricken, numb to you. / O how the woman in me cries: / "O my dear ...»
«You're me in the way. I used to / Wlak so, without looking up. / Stop, passerby! Don't refuse to. / I beg and I pray you — stop! You'll read, as you lay the glowing / Red blossoms on the mound of grass: / Marina. And then more slowly: / The dates — of my birth and death. Yes...»
«The bed of a railway cutting / has tidy sheets. The steel-blue / parallel tracks ruled out / as neatly as staves of music. And over them people are driven / like possessed creatures from Pushkin / whose piteous song has been silenced. / Look, they’re departing, deserting. And yet l...»
«We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass / doesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold, / counting over the rings, and pouring Anis / into the long bottles with their narrow throats straightening tow thread for the peasant woman: / ceremoniously, the house is filled with...»