Translated by Amelia Glaser and Ainsley Morse
The Desire to Be a Rib
1.
Me and myself, we’re uneasy, like a lady with her pitbull.
Here I, a many-headed storm, strike this little village.
Here I’m some saber-toothed dino at a peaceful feast.
Better grab me by the and shove me in this drawer:
Like into a chest of drawers—my chest
Between this rib and that one,
Beyond borders of skin, flesh, bone—
Into this inviolable lifetime home.
I relinquish my rights
To one sleeve and the other.
I relinquish my lefts
To doubt, opinion, rage.
I relinquish speech.
I sever myself from shoulders,
Face, coat and bra
For the sake of this vocation—the rib’s.
I want to lie here in your midst,
Like messy hens up in their nests,
Like flat herrings in their tins.
To hammer out your rib cages.
I want to take part in the work
Of leukocytes or electrons,
Shock-worker in the flesh works,
I’ll pack up all the sockets,
Account for the state of the tissue,
Like Tanya from the textile plant,
The whole of her dowry in two braids.
Dole out to you sateen and calico,
For covering over the empty, the
Endless hallways of our body.
Singing along with riddle-songs.
Popping open pores with flair,
Like that champagne bottle from before.
Like dark blood flowing toward the nape.
2.
…. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. .
…. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. .
Like back in wild childhood on not peeing yourself—
To concentrate on seeping, shade-like,
Under the skin layer, under the fatty membrane,
Under this nervy, living scrap,
Under that bushel, beyond the wet layers,
Into filaments stratified and hard
Boring through a passage like some tick.
And gently lying down, like something small.
Translated by Amelia Glaser and Ainsley Morse
Bus Stop: Israelitischer Friedhof
Along the bus route, to the right and all in front
The letters on the wall spell out G—O—D.
And issuing from the mouth with unprecedented force
Involuntary, like a speech bubble: Lord. Have mercy.
And so another verst slips
By, with such and such upon the lips.
Like the cheapest ballad of a briar
At the bus stop, yet bearing on apace.
It runs at you and unwreathes
Like a paper handkerchief blossoms on your face
The whole town momently bathed in light
Climbing to the upper branches for a sight
Dumbstruck at the balustrades
Watching, like the neighbor, from behind her lace,
How the dead rise from their graves.
There is no place for the living on dead ground
Even there, where the first lady of the sod,
Soviet Maize, strode on limbs earth-bound
And waxed unceremonious towards the Gods
The young mother, the queen bee
Who has learned to gather up like children, the glean
Of harvests, meadows and sowings
Her tongue sucking sap from the weed
A cocktail of vital air and dank mold-green
Blood and water from the left flank flowing.
Even here where she leafs through the fields
Speaking with the voices of seasons
Where the antennae quiver, the swarm breathes
And unready minds are breached
By the promise of bright new reasons.
Thimble-bodied, the sparrows flit and fly
The sparrows, as shaggy as foxes.
Where a cross is formed from every outline
And, like the maypole, surges to the sky
And flies—but onto the ropes, like boxers.
So at dawn they lie stilclass="underline" her, him, any of us
Like the babe in its pram, the ice in the compress
Like the unborn child in the amniotic flow
Its soft down washing in the womb’s scumble
Like a headcount in a children’s home
Like a little finger loose in a thimble.
Is anyone easy in their skin? How about the one
Who will wake embraced and held tight?
Moses in his basket, the muses’ suckling son
The newlywed appearing in smoke and light?
Stepping across the reproductive earth, one as two.
In imitation of spring, whispering, renewed
And will he give thanks and praise
For this duality, so newly gained …
Is he easy in his skin? Who was pulled into light
And opened himself for the first shriek
Between red and white, between doctor and breast
The indignity of air in the barreling chest
Now speak!
Nor is there place for the living in the warm surf.
Is anyone easy in their skin? Is anyone easy enough?
And clutching at the very last the last of all
The hands I can trust, I glance out over the silclass="underline"
Between soothing and surviving, between living and dead
There is a secret place, I know
I cannot steal it, nor is it my debt
Nor will I leave it alone.
In the deadest of all dead places at the heart
Of the earth, in an empty sleeve, in the untouched dust
Of endless cenacles, each colder than the last
Brought to life by the cooing of doves.
On the buses terminating at and on their paths
In the darkening bushes, the unworkplaces
The brashly lit halls where kids learn martial arts
On orphaned balconies, two joining faces.
Buying the day’s pretzels
Crossing with the bicycles
Every warehouse loader, every wife, every girl
This place drags them all into its thrall.
I stand by it like a watchman, pacing my duty
Borne by invisible hands, in a heaven that is earthly
At the cemetery, where the eternal act of bringing forth
Is the meeting and parting with a new natural force.
Translated by Sasha Dugdale
from O
Zoo, Woman, Monkey
For every beast of the forest is mine,
and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
Ps. 50:10
zoo
… And the vixen rises, quaking
On her woody stalks.
And the bear slides the view to closed,
Like an outstretched piney paw,
And the deer seem older than their very skin.
And the polar owls are squandering their coats.
And bicolor ducks are leading out their troops.