They wiped your slate
With snow, you’re not alive.
Bayonets twenty-eight
And bullet-holes five.
It’s a bitter present,
Love, but I’ve sewed it.
Russia, an old peasant
Killing his meat.
Не бывать тебе в живых,
Со снегу не встать.
Двадцать восемь штыковых,
Огнестрельных пять.
Горькую обновушку
Другу шила я.
Любит, любит кровушку
Русская земля.
«Flying in at my window, / a moon like a snow jay / scrapes claws on walls, / flutters over my pillow / / Scared of confinement / in pages or dwelling, / my homeless darling — / in midnight finery. »
«Not to set fire to myself / or be burned like Avvakum, / I do what I can / to chase away thought. I now orbit the earth / in low-level flight, / life’s burdens and vanities / far out of sight.»
«I thought they would make us the heroes / of cantantas, posters, books of all kinds; / that hats would be flung in the air / and streets go out of their minds. We had returned. / We were unbowed. / We had stayed true. But the city had thoughts of its own; / it just muttered a word or t...»
«Alive not by bread alone, / I dip a crust of sky, / in the morning chill, / in the stream flowing by.»