The Voice Over

And, while she was pounding close-in targets

As she polished off the riverbanks

For the one she was in love with

For the one she could not save

Raining dust and down off his service coat

Tensing infantile wings to fly

The heir of the gray eagle of the steppes

Kept watch over his parent from the sky

The A went past, Tram-Traum

It’s given lifts to you and me

Some mademoiselle will now

Open a fashion boutique

Lay out the blacks and whites

Wipe the empty mirrors

Look up at the unplugged

Displays from the corner

Which don’t reflect the Friday hour

Not the shopping people

Not a few summer dresses

But something else entirely

In everyday hustle and bustle

The gait of grandpa’s spring

You by the bakery

With a net bag of national air

The past is waterborne

A tear washes away

Its look of reproach

And falls to disappear in the display

We open up like faucets

This way and that, this way and that

Boutique security

Never give us a second look

Well I don’t sing Kupitye papirosn

And I don’t hazard games of chance

I resolve issues of high priority

On the guesstimate that I won’t die today

The postal carriage is coming down the rails

The iron horse is steaming at the bit

You let it go after an hour or so

That you are not entirely ready for it

Into whichever of our young republics

I’ll carry off my empty head

That heart’s a bagel, it costs only a ruble

Get it before it’s cold

from the cycle

KIREEVSKY

TRANSLATED BY SASHA DUGDALE

The light swells and pulses at the garden gate

Rolls itself up, rolls itself out

Smetana,^* the very best—open up, mamma

Sweet lady, unlatching a casement—the best and the finest!

O black-throated Smetana, flame up

O white-winged Smetana, flare high

I’m no Lenten gruel, no scourge of sultanas

No faceless soup of curds for convicts

Don’t you dare compare my cream of ermine!

Are you pleased with a simple-minded cheese?

As the land rises and falls in hills and valleys

I’m shaped in living lipids and calories

Congealed unconcealed made gloriously manifest

Turned from one side to another and back again

Who will take up a silver spoon to muddy

My lilac-hued body?

And you, my light, barely at the threshold

Little fool, my light, never where I need you

You effulgent, I gently melting

I gently melting, I slightly smelling

And down there, where life rustles in the undergrowth

A tiny frog sits and croaks

Swells and croaks. Croaks and swells

And lifts its front legs to protect itself.

—

^*Translator’s note: Smetana is Russian sour cream.

In the village, in the field, in the forest

A coach rattled past, a carriage

A smart little trap with a hood like a wing

From the big city they came, from Kazan,

At the turning of the year, with caskets and coffers

To carry out an inspection, a census:

Oh the forest is full of souls, and the water’s flow,

Many souls in the hamlet, and in the oak tree, too

And day wanders the wood, walking into the wind

All its own self long, on the spoor of the hind.

And the circles of dancers—still traces in the ground

The lips of hired weepers—not yet shrivelled

And all of it, even the young Cleïs,

Recorded in the book of conscience

And behind the gilded crest stamped on the boards

They barely dare to scratch or burp.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And tears ran down its coat

Blood smoked on the snow.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And rocked, rocked gently

The empty cradle.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Asking the endless question

And from beyond the seven seas

Carried the wails of a child.

I wandered the yards, I glanced in the windows

I searched for a child I could raise myself

Choose myself a little babby

Maybe a girl or a little laddy

I’d feed my child the purest sugar

Teach it to lace and embroider

Take it for strolls under my pinny

Sing sweet songs to my own little sonny.

But they cast me out, they came at me

With torches and pitchforks they drove me

Your own foolish mothers and fathers!

And you will wander snot-nosed for years

Angering strangers, lost and derided

Without the muzzle-scent of tears

Never knowing your own true tribe.

The last songs are assembling,

Soldiers of a ghostly front:

Escaping from surrounded places

A refrain or two make a break for it

Appearing at the rendez-vous

Looking about them, like the hunted.

How stiffly unbending they are

Running water won’t soften them now!

How unused they are to company

The words don’t form as they ought.

But their elderly, skillful hands

Pass the cartridges round,

And until first light their seeing fingers

Reassemble Kalashnikovs,

They draw, with sharp intake of breath

From wounds, the deeply lodged letters—

And toward morning, avoiding checkpoints,

They enter the sleepless city.

In times of war, they fall silent.

When the muses roar, they fall silent.

from the cycle

UNDERGROUND PATHEPHONE

My dear, my little Liberty,

I wanted you—but why?

A tiny boat runs on the sea,

Alone in it I lie.

A teaspoon sits beside a plate,

But nothing’s left to stir.

I’ve done some being around the place,

I will not anymore.