Marina Tsvetaeva
Girlfriend. 14. There are names like stifling flowers...

There are names like stifling flowers
And gazes like a dancing flame…
There are dark sinuous mouths
With deep damp corners.

There are women. — Their hair, like a helmet,
Their fan smells deadly and delicate.
They are thirty. — Why, why do you need
My Spartan child’s soul?

Translated by Karina McCorkle