Mikhail Kuzmin
What rain!..

What rain!
Our sail is drenched
and one cannot see that it was striped,
The rouge runs down your cheeks,
and you look like a dye worker from Tyre.
Nervously we crossed the threshold
of the charcoal burner’s low mud hut;
The man with the scar on his forehead
pushed away the dirty children
with septic eyes and full of scabs,
and placing the stump in front of you,
he brushed the dust off with his apron,
clapped his hands, and said:
“Would the master like to eat some cakes?”
And the old black woman rocked the baby and sang:
“If I were the Pharaoh,
I would buy two pears,
one I would give to my friend,
the other I would eat myself.”

Translated by Yakov Hornstein