Joseph Brodsky
Brise Marine

Dear, I ventured out of the house late this evening, merely
for a breath of fresh air from the ocean not far away.
The sun was smoldering low like a Chinese fan in a gallery
and a cloud reared up its huge lid like a Steinway.

A quarter century back you craved curry and dates from Senegal,
tried your voice for the stage, scratched profiles in a sketch pad,
dallied with me- but later alloyed with a chemical
engineer and, judging by letters, grew fairly stupid.

These days you´ve been seen in churches in the capital and in provinces,
at rites for our friends or acquaintances, now continuous;
yet I am glad, after all, that the world still promises
distances more inconceivable than the one between us.

Understand me correctly, though: your body, your warble, your middle name
now stir practically nothing. Not that they´ve ceased to burgeon;
but to forget one life, a man needs at minimum
one more life. And I´ve done that portion.

You got lucky as well: where else, save in a snapshot perhaps,
will you forever remain free of wrinkles, lithe, caustic, vivid?
Having bumped into memory, time learns its impotence.
Ebb tide; I smike in the darkness and inhale rank seaweed.

Translated by Joseph Brodsky