Marina Tsvetaeva
My brother

Scorching, as hot tar:
Unendurable a second time!
My brother, with so
Strange an admixture

Of discord... (The sound
Of a torn branch comes here?)
My brother, suddenly setting
Like so many suns!

My brother, with no other sisters:
Made entirely my own!
Up to your funeral pyre —
My brother, provided: we go

Together to heaven or to hell!
We come to rest — with a wound —
As with a rose! (My brother,
You are the gift of hell!)

My brother! Looking back over the ages:
Nothing was stronger than
Our bond! Running back — the river...
May come to whisper again

Somewhere, to the stars and wooden sleepers,
— In the open, to no third party! —
What we whispered those nights
As Cesare — to Lucretia.

Translated by Mary Jane White