Osip Mandelshtam
The Turkish Woman

Everything rests on your small shoulders:
the sidelong glances of conscience,
our dangerous, wolfish simplicity —
my words, like a drowned woman, are dumb.

Red fins shining, red gills fanning,
their wondering mouths rounded in wordless
and famished O’s, the fish fin here and there.
Take this, feed them the half-risen bread of your flesh!

But we are not goldfish swimming round the globe,
and bubbling when we meet by a water fern;
ours the heat of the warm-blooded body, little ribs
vain as wishbones, the wet, white glitter of the eyeball.

I am gathering poppies from the dangerous fields
of your eyebrows. I love
your tiny, fluttering fish-gill red lips,
as a janissary loves his pitiful, small crescent moon.

Dear Turkish woman, do not be angry,
we will be tied together in a strong sack
and thrown into the Black Sea. I’ll do it myself,
while drinking your words, their black water.

Maria, comfort those who must die;
death must be frightened off, and put to sleep.
I stand on a steep cliff by the sea.
Go away from me, stand off — another minute!

Translated by Robert Lowell