Anna Akhmatova
To Death

You'll surely come. So why wait anymore?
I'm waiting for you. I am through.
My light is out. My doors are open for
The simple wonder that is you.
So take whatever guise might strike your fancy:
Blast chemical weapons through my room,
Come quiet as the nightstick of a gangster,
Disease my throat with typhus fume,
Or be the bedtime story you once told
(The one we're sick of every night)
That I may see the law's blue cap, the cold
House-porter's face in livid fright.
I could care less. The Yenisey swirls by,
The North Star glimmers overhead,
And the blue glint in a beloved eye
Goes dark against the final dread.

Translated by A. Z. Foreman