Vladimir Mayakovsky
A Few Words About My Wife

I have married the moon and she combs the water,
the beaches of uncharted seas.
She’s my lunar lady, she has long red hair
and she drives a herd of horses
through a screaming streak of stars!
She gets married every evening in a greasy garage
and she kisses all the pictures
on the newspaper stands.
Her pretty boy winks, he wraps
the Milky Way around her,
he gets glitter on his fingers
and stars all over his hands.
And what about me?
The yoke of your eyebrows brings buckets of water
from the cool cool wells of your eyes,
it douses my desire and the lake-silk shimmers
on the singing amber cello of your thighs.
I sink into boulevards! I drown
in desire for deserts of sand.
Don’t you recognize your baby?
It’s my poor little poem, she wears fishnet stockings
and she drinks in a bar
as empty as this barren land.

Translated by Paul Schmidt