Elisaveta Dmitrieva
The red cloak

Someone said to me: “Your beloved
Will be wrapped in a fiery cloak...”
Whose sling hurled a stone.
Crashing with frenzied force?..

Whose flint arrow
Is buried in the sand by the spring?
Whose fleeting hoof
Left its imprint in the rock?

Whose gleaming visor
Glinted past, there, in the thicket?
In the sky flutters a red cloak...
I did not glimpse his face.

Translated by Temira Pachmuss