Marina Tsvetaeva
Girlfriend. 1. Are you happy? You won’t say...

Are you happy? You won’t say.
Just barely? That’s good.
If you’ve kissed so many
that you’ve sickened of love,
none of them can have been the one.

I see in you all of Shakespeare’s heroines,
now Desdemona, now Lady Macbeth,
yours is the tragic grandeur of a woman
no man will save.

You’re tired of repeating a love recitative
that never soars into aria;
there’s a man’s wedding ring
on your pale hand, unlovely and cold
as a wagon wheel’s cast-iron rim,
—and this says everything.

I love you, for the way you walk proud
under a storm-cloud of disapproval,
for the way that’s given your wit
corrosive bitterness,
because you’re so much better than them all.

I love you precisely because our lives
took such different directions.
How not? Neither knew where we were going.
But you lure me now like a brilliant inspiration
that can’t end well.

I love you, demon with the lofty thoughtful brow,
because I feel so guilty
that, even though I should die trying,
you don’t want to be saved!

I love you for the way you make me tremble,
I wonder, did I dream you? Are you even real?
I love the erotic irony,
that you are and aren’t what you seem,
that you can be so magically handsome
without being a he.

Translated by Seraphina Powell