Boris Slutsky
Husbands with their doings and nerves...

Husbands with their doings and nerves,
sense of duty and sense of guilt,
ought to die first, first,
they ought not die second*

Wives ought to grow old little by little
reaching even hundred-year limits,
on rare occasions, but over and over again
remembering their husbands.

You should not have done it the way
you did. You should not.
With a kind smile on your lips
you should have lived,
you should have lived a long time.

To live to old age, to gray hairs
is what wives are obliged and ought to do,
Getting on with your things at home,
breaking certain men’s hearts
or even — well, why not? —
drinking a toast in memory of your husbands.

Translated by Gerald S. Smith