«Not my mother, but a Tula peasant, / Eléna Kúzina, fed me her breast. / She warmed my swaddling-clothes above the stove, / and with her cross at night my dreams were blessed. She knew no fairy tales and never sang: / but always kept as treats for me instead / inside her treasured w...»
«The heat was unbearable. The forests were burning. / Time passed languorously. At the neighboring dacha / A cock was crowing. I went outside the gate. / There, leaning upon the fence, an itinerant Serb, / Rail-thin and dark, was snoozing on the bench. / A heavy silver cross hung suspended ...»
«Halfway through life’s journey I, I, I. What a wild, elusive word! / Is that man over there really me? / Did mama really love someone like that? / With a pasty yellow face, half grey hair, / And all-knowing, like a snake? The boy who danced at parties / At summer houses in Ostankino â€...»
«There is nothing else as fine and free / as to break up for good with a beloved her / and leave the railroad station all alone. / And then in front of you entirely new / the palaces of Venice would reappear. / You linger on the stairs and then go to / take a gondola. As you approach Rial...»