Marina Tsvetaeva
Girlfriend. 13. I’ll go over it now for this final time...

I’ll go over it now for this final time,
on the eve of our splitting up.
I did indeed love those hands of yours—

though they took—and not “no” for an answer.
I did love your smouldering look—

even though there was no one
you didn’t try it on;
how I loved your eyes—

though their disapproving looks
demanded from me a detailed account
if I ever so much as noticed another.

It was always you, you,
you and your goddamn passion,
insisting—God knows!—on confession, penance
if I so much as sighed
with no one and nothing in mind.

Exhausted as I am from it all,
I’ll add at least this—
don’t be in a hurry to hear it—
yours was a soul that always somehow stood
in opposition to mine.

I’ll throw in this as well—
why not? now that we’re finished—
my lips were too young for yours,
they were innocent—’til your kiss.

My gaze was bright and brave
before it locked with yours,
my heart as pure as a five year old’s—
happy, whoever never met you,
whose path you never crossed.

Translated by Seraphina Powell