Mesopotamia

There’s nothing there yet. Green night,

each silence has its own measure.

Knowing how many centuries it took

for the first things to appear,

he speaks her name.

Opening a window into the night,

he anxiously listens for any movement,

expecting something—anything,

but the heavy canvas of nothingness

gently falls into his hands.

From now on everything that happens to them—

ocean currents, icebergs in dead seas,

the daily cycles of the atmosphere,

songs of sperm whales, screams of phantoms,

the awakening of scents and colors,

grass roots and tree leaves,

lake ice and bird whistles,

iron ore and coal’s tired tremors,

the whispers and roars of obedient animals,

the yearnings of vibrant trading towns,

fires that burn ships,

death on dark silk banners,

dying stars hanging high in the firmament,

the silent dead in the summer ground,

blood, like lava in the fallow ridges of veins:

everything that was meant to come will come,

everything that once was will disappear,

like taxes owed for worlds revealed to them,

for a voice with hints of darkness,

for warmth liberated with each new breath.

Knowing everything that awaits them,

he still speaks her name,

woven out of consonants and bitter vowels,

until love’s green current,

a cool shadow of tenderness,

carries him away.

Marat died in his sleep

at the beginning of March,

in spring when the snow melts

and rivers run from their banks,

just as children run from their parents’ homes

after a hard winter.

Marat trained at the Spartacus Club.

He had technique, tried and tested,

his body was in shape, he looked serious,

he was probably the best fighter

in the welterweight class,

and had a tattoo of Fidel on his left leg.

The imam spoke at the funeral:

“The Prophet was never sad,” he said.

“The Prophet knew—evil devours evil.

What shall be, shall be. As far as we know.

Marat will have a different story to tell

about each of his transgressions.

The Prophet invented illnesses like pneumonia

for people like him.”

In the corner, Marat’s mother was silent.

Marat’s brother listened to the harsh words.

Then the imam placed his hand

on his narrow shoulders

and said:

“Everything that disappears, will appear once again.”

The brother answered, “Nothing disappears.

I’ll take up the mouth guard Marat used when he fought.

“I know why he died.

Every morning he fought against his phantoms.

Every day he beat his fists till they bled.

Every night he felt

the stars burn out overhead.

Only the bravest go beyond this boundary.

Anyone who saw him in the ring knows what I am talking about.

“How can something that still exists disappear?

He who gives us everything, what will he do with it?

Only fear can disappear.

The rest is on us—younger brothers

who break our hearts,

steadfast to the end.”

Then the brother stepped aside.

He was a year younger.

He always considered Marat the leader.

He followed him everywhere.

Now he fell silent and stepped aside,

holding back tears, ashamed in front of us.

When they carried out the body it started to snow.

It fell from the dark sky and landed at our feet.

The imam walked ahead, like an apparition.

Early spring is not the best time to visit a cemetery.

Women started to cry and men could feel

the silent stars above them burn out.

Fights without rules—daily wages of the saints,

the referee yells something, the crowd grows silent.

Young apostles fight

against the locals

they consider foreign.

They wrap Jesus’s hands into fists,

and shove him into the ring, as into a river.

His opponent, a young dockworker, faces him,

but doesn’t offer him his hand.

When Jesus falls on the canvas,

sliding into hell, somewhere near the bottom,

his body becomes brittle, like bread,

and his blood dry as wine.

Then someone shouts, “Come on, get it together!

Remember everything you used to tell us!

Get up or people will hear about this,

everywhere, before you know it.

“Get up and fight, as only you can!

Knock down that scum! Don’t let him walk out of here!

Each victory

brings you closer to the goal!

“No forgiveness for those who hide, not in the river or in the grass!

No grace from the Lord, no rights!

Come on, you’ve fallen so many times,

fallen and died!

“They’re all traitors and losers!

They don’t have a conscience, only gills,

fins, instead of wings on their backs!

Knock them down, Savior,

bloody your fists on them!

“Knock them down for their weakness and tears!

Knock them down for forgetting everything each night!

For watching their own deaths

like spectators!

“Anyway, they don’t listen to you or to us,

nothing will save them, they don’t give a shit about anything,

destroy them, O Lord, before they

destroy themselves.

“Destroy them for their corruption and laziness,

their treachery in every generation,

their cunning, which they weave

into their prayers!”

…and he gets up, spitting black blood,

rises, and falls, then rises again,

and the dockworkers whisper, so again,

by death he’s conquered death.

He hits ’em right in the solar plexus

for each sin!

Boxing is really for the stubborn

and the young.

The young dockworker, parting from life,

manages to thank him, happy as a baby,

as if saying, Blessed is he who believes

in salvation and oblivion.

The apostles wipe his face with a towel

and tell him they always believed in him.

And the one who placed his bets on him,

continues to back him,

now

a tested fighter.

Uncle Sasha worked in a bar in Frunze[1]

and was wise in the ways of the world, may he rest in peace.

He liked to say, “For a real sailor the honor of the fleet

is more important than the reputation of a ship.

“So no matter what port, or where you drop anchor,

keep your heart open to all winds.

Even if you are throwing up overboard in the morning,

make sure to hold on to what you want.

“Even when you are strung up from the yardarm,

or when you are dragged on the bottom of the ocean,

always remember that somewhere there’s a door,

where someone is waiting for you with wine and hope!”

We are not given that much advice.

And what we do get is not what we need in life.

So I was always ready without a doubt

to see the truth in Uncle Sasha’s rants and confessions.

All his wild stories, tales, and drunken yarns,

all his dark curses and pitch-black tirades

had a point: you cannot abandon your friends in a fight,

nor can you forgive anyone who hits you.

I remember everyone who once sat beside us,

who were then led out by surly cops

into the melting snows of March or the freezing air of November,

deprived of the joy and sense of justice around every table.

Some of the workers and professors with dark faces

who listened to his stories about the Black Sea Fleet,

now eat from dumpsters;

others have died of hunger or TB;

some left those dissipating places

to defend a lost Jerusalem.

But I don’t remember a single one

who was not ready to die with him.

“Hey Uncle Sasha,” one of them would shout,

“We dwell in the bounty of the Lord.

This country does not deserve to have its own fleet.

This town, with its rivers and golden sand,

will drink to us with bad brandy when we die.

Our light will be reflected in the distant stars,

black roses will turn to cinders in the hands of girls.

Every heart burns only once.

Death arrives after

life ends.”

Then they would step around the corner

and fall into the gutter.

Maybe I alone kept

what they left behind.

Silver sewn into belts.

Animals, children, women.

Trees growing in summer sands.

Springs gushing on the bottom of the river.

The team was disbanded before the season started—

the owner cashed in his shares and bought a hotel in Egypt.

Black crows strolled, guarding the lawn.

In the locker room the deflated soccer balls smelled of defeat.

Sania, our right wing, the hope of the team,

cried as he carried his things out of the clubhouse.

He held on to his shoes, as if he had nothing else,

his hands folded like a Sunni saying his prayers.

Well, I didn’t believe him, he was doing it on purpose,

behaving like he was the only one who cared.

Sania’s brother, a rightist, was sitting in jail, dreaming of burning down this town

for electing such an idiot as mayor.

His father also had done time and was right-wing too.

I don’t know how he dealt with them.

The only good things in his life were his injuries,

old sports club patches, and his long black hair.

So I say to him, “Enough, Sania, enough whining,

enough lamenting losses.

Why are we standing here like a couple of Sunnis,

come on Sania, let’s settle our nerves.

“We’ll go to the factory and find some work,

we’ll apply to college or sign up to be security guards.

When you have a choice, always choose freedom,

When you’re one man down, you’ve got to lock down the defense.”

And he answers, “Work, what work?

Guard? What are you talking about?

All my life all I ever saw was the opponent’s goalpost.

The only person who ever respected me was their guard.

“All I had was a number on my back,

a place in the lineup, and I gave everything for it.

What can I do now in this country?

How can I tell who’s on my team and who’s not?

“Why stay, who should I fight?

What the fuck, I’ll go to Russia.

I’ll play where they assign me, I’ll take my chances,

leave this mess, and wait for amnesia.”

…I knew he would never leave, things would never change.

All our losses are not accidental, they’re necessary.

You can’t escape from yourself, from your own grief,

from your own hate, from your own love.

You can’t change your memories or your dreams,

you can’t stop the shadows or the comets.

Things never change, they stay with us,

no matter how long we live or how we die.

Our night skies, our flocks of birds,

our rivers, our towns, our buildings:

no one will ever remember a thing about us,

no one will ever forgive us for anything we’ve done.

So I’m writing about her again,

about the balconies

and our conversations at home.

I remember what she

hid from me,

what she kept in between the pages

of that anthology with all those damned poets

who constantly spoiled

our lives.

“Last summer,” she said,

“something happened to my heart.

It started to drift, like a ship,

whose crew had died

of fever.

It moved deep within my breath,

caught by the currents,

attacked by sharks.

“I always said,

Heart, dear heart, no sails or ropes

will help you.

The stars are too far away

to guide us.

Heart, dear heart,

too many men

have signed up for your crews,

too many of them have stayed behind in British ports,

losing their souls

to the tears of the green dragon of alcohol.”

So I also

remember her legs, which I was ready

to fight for to the death,

and I repeat after her,

“Heart, dear heart,

sick with fever,

get well soon,

recover quickly,

so much burning love awaits us,

so many beautiful tragedies

hide from us on the open seas.

Heart, dear heart,

I am overjoyed to hear

you beat,

like a fox—

captured

but never tamed.”

The princess wears

orange clip-on earrings

and carries a dark bag

filled with treasures.

Sometimes she likes to tell us,

“This is makeup my father

bought me. These cigarettes

I took from my older sister.

My mother left me

this silver jewelry she wore

till she died.”

“And this,” I ask, “who’s in this photo?”

“My girlfriends,” she answers,

“they really hate me for my

golden hair and black underwear,

which none of them have.

My friends are ready

to tear me to pieces

for all that summer sultriness

that heats up in my

heart.”

What is the point of poetry?

To write about what everyone already knows.

To talk about things we are deprived of,

to voice our disappointments.

To speak and provoke

anger and love, envy, hatred,

and sympathy. To talk

under the moon

hanging above us, with all its

yellow reflections looming down.

Every grown woman

has this,

this sweet melody,

which you can only hear

when her heart begins to break,

which can only stop

when you’ve broken her heart.

This fox

howls at the moon all night

and avoids my traps,

acting like nothing happened,

like nothing concerns her.

Once the jewelry she wore

around

her neck

grew in value.

The blanket in which she wrapped herself

was a field of sunflowers

in which birds

found stray seeds

of tenderness.

When she grew angry,

rage rose in her veins,

like sap moving up a rose stem.

When you’re in love it is most important

not to believe what’s said.

She yelled, “Leave me alone,”

but really meant,

“Tear out my heart.”

She refused

to talk to me,

but was actually refusing

to exhale.

As if she were trying to make things worse

for me than they actually were.

As if our biggest problem

was the air

we breathed.

I ask her,

“What are you drawing all the time?”

“These are men,” she answers, “and these are women.”

“Why are your women always crying?”

“They cry,” she replies, “for the wind,

which was hidden in their hair;

they cry for the grapes harvested,

which tasted tart in their mouths.

And no one—neither men in clothes smelling of smoke,

nor children with golden scorpions

of disobedience in matchboxes,

can make them feel better.”

The love of men and women

is the tenderness and helplessness we receive,

a long list of gifts and losses,

the wind tossing your hair in May.

Oh, how hard it is to rely on the one

you trust, and how easy it is to be disappointed

in the one who touches your lips at night.

Some things are whimsical and invisible,

no matter how you color them,

they will always stay the same:

a star hangs above you,

the air roils with warmth.

So much light is hidden

in every woman’s throat,

so much trouble.

The best things this winter

were her footsteps in the first snow.

It’s hardest for tightrope walkers:

how can they retain their balance

when their hearts pull to one side?

It would be good to have two hearts.

They could be suspended in the air,

they could hold their breath,

as they closely examine

the green jellyfish in the snow.

The best things this winter

were the trees covered with birds.

The crows looked like telephones

used by

demons of joy.

They sat in the trees, and trees in winter

are like women after breakups—

their warm roots intertwined

with cold roots,

stretching into the dark,

needing light.

It would be good

to teach these crows songs

and prayers, to give them something

to do on damp

March mornings.

The best thing that could have happened,

happened to us.

“This is happening because it’s March,” she said,

disappointed. “This is all happening

because it’s March:

at night you spend a long time searching

your pockets for bits of ads,

in the morning emerald grass

grows under your bed,

bitter and hot,

smelling like golf balls.”

In the summer

she walks through the rooms,

catching the wind in the windows,

like an amateur sailor,

who can’t set

the sails.

She stalks drafts,

setting traps for them.

But the drafts tell her,

“Your movements are too gentle,

but your blood is too hot,

you’ll never get

anything in life

with that disposition!

“You lift your palms

too high

to catch the emptiness.”

Everything that slips

out of our hands—is only emptiness.

Everything

we have no patience for—

is only the wind blowing

over the city.

The sun in the sky at dawn

is like an orange

in a kid’s schoolbag—

the only thing with real weight,

the only thing you think about

when you are

lonely.

If I were the postman

on her block,

if I knew where

she gets those certified

letters from,

maybe I’d understand

life better,

how it’s set in motion,

who fills it with song,

who fills it with tears.

People who read newspapers,

people with warm

hearts, good souls,

grow old without letting

anyone know.

If I were the postman

on this block,

even after their deaths

I’d water the plants

on their dry balconies,

and feed the feral cats

in their green kitchens.

Then, running down the stairs,

I would hear her say,

“Postman, postman,

all my happiness

fits into your bag,

don’t give it away

to the milkman or hardened widows,

“Postman, postman,

there is no death,

and there is nothing after death.”

There is hope

that everything will be

just like we want it,

and there is confidence

that everything happened

just like we wanted it.

Oh, her voice is bitter

and imponderable.

Oh, her handwriting is difficult

and indecipherable.

That kind of handwriting

is good for signing death sentences—

sentences no one will ever carry out,

no one will ever figure it all out.

She likes to walk barefoot and sleep on her stomach,

so she can feel the oil flowing underground,

the trees being born in the empty darkness

and the water rising to seep directly under her.

She knows where all the courtyards lead in this city,

and the paths that thieves use from cellars to rooftops.

She knows how to catch kites and blimps without anchors

aided by street patrols and air shepherds.

Every teenager would like to catch her by her shoulder,

knowing that she would escape anyway,

leaving behind only her warmth,

and not believing that she was actually just there.

Every killer watches her disappear into the darkness,

hoping that she will come to him in his dreams,

convinced that she will forget his name.

He’ll never understand

what I mean

to her.

Because she loves to warm her hands in other people’s pockets,

and knows every ticket collector on the night trolley,

she greets them only to interrupt

their loneliness, which lasts till dawn.

Because each of the lost ticket collectors

is chained by their own fear like to a galley,

hopelessly handing out tickets, and looking out the window—

for her, the passenger, who doesn’t care

what stop she gets off at to descend into the darkness,

what unhappy love affair she mourns,

what losses she regrets, what losses she doesn’t,

and what words she will use to tell me about it all.

Her stepfather was odd—

worked as a gardener for a Vietnamese family,

looking after trees, which would have grown without him

in the suburbs, past the factory, in the haze.

He counted off branches, like prisoners count off years,

hunted for foxes,

fed wild dogs straight from his hands.

Everyone thought he was crazy, even she agreed,

but explained,

“I love him, I need him,

so why is he constantly hiding in the trees, in the shadows?

When he steps out into the sun, why does he move so strangely,

as if he knew

where trouble was coming from?”

His employers couldn’t remember his name,

his friends didn’t recognize him, his family rejected him,

and used him to frighten children, who were not scared at all.

They ran after him onto the old railroad tracks,

and when he was sick, they pulled birds’ eggs out of nests,

as if they were taking bulbs out of street lamps.

I saw him only once, in the fall,

I noticed him walking, far away, from the back.

He was wandering in the shadows, frightening the stars,

carrying a ladder to cut some branches.

His demeanor was humble—he was simply exhausted.

That’s how Jesus carried his cross, I thought.

I also thought—this is easy for him,

knowing what to do, not noticing the emptiness,

remembering everything that was, accepting everything that is,

clearly imagining his future,

believing that nothing will change,

guessing that no one will escape,

shifting the ladder from one shoulder to the other.

I said as he passed,

Do what you have to do,

work is only part of our struggle,

faith is the sand that forms the foundation of our years,

and trees can’t really grow without gardeners.

It’s good, he thought, it’s good that I’m dead to her,

good that she’s forgotten my name,

good that this all happened so quickly,

good that I wasn’t there for all of it.

Good that she decided all this for us,

that I didn’t have to convince her to stop the nonsense,

didn’t have to watch her hesitate,

didn’t have to see her dark eyes.

Now it’s important to disappear, to choose the right course,

it’s important not to return to where I used to live,

it’s important not to go to familiar places,

not to frighten friends, or disappoint strangers,

not to wander into their dreams, not to touch their things,

not to look through their books, not to drink their wine,

not to hear their breathing, not to see their eyes,

not to feel what they themselves no longer feel.

It’s good that I can fly out of the chimney now,

walk through fire, fall on the grass,

feel the flow of the stuff that fills her dreams,

notice the cables that keep her afloat.

It’s a good thing that death is neither an achievement nor a loss,

good that our footsteps don’t give us away,

that nothing can be turned back,

that nothing can be lost forever.

What was there?

green warmth,

against the orange background

of the evening sky.

Golden moons,

blue fish in the river,

dark shadows

on her face.

What to do with the priests?

They graze their churches like cattle,

leading them to emerald-green pastures, watching

how their churches plop down into the river silt

to escape from the June sun.

They follow their churches, chasing them out of the neighbor’s

wheat fields, turning them toward home, where

evening fires are lit in cottages.

They sleep on bags and books, listening to the breath of sleeping animals,

recalling in dreams the faces of women who came and

told them their darkest sins,

asking for advice, awaiting forgiveness.

What kind of advice can he give you?

His entire life is spent herding echoes,

searching for pasturelands, and sleeping under a dark sky.

You can sing with him, you can

sleep next to him, covering yourself with an infantry jacket,

you can dry your wet clothes at the fire,

wash your shirts in the river.

He is ready to hang them in the church like a holy shroud.

What to do with the atheists?

They say, “Truly I believe, I believe in everything said,

but I will never admit it for any reason,

under any circumstances, that’s my business,

and only concerns me. Let him take offense

a hundred times and threaten me, get angry, and turn away from me on his crucifix,

anyway—What is he without me? What can he do alone?

He must struggle for my attention.

He is destined to fight for my redemption.

He must take into consideration my doubts, my

inconsistencies, my sincerity.”

What to do with you? You can sing with us,

stand in a circle with us, place your hands on our shoulders:

we are united in our faith,

united in our love,

in our loneliness,

in our disappointment.

What to do with all of us?

If he had just a little more time,

if he did not have to watch his domesticated church,

if he didn’t have to follow it, chase it out of yellow fields,

he would have more time for our

worrisome premonitions.

Love destroys

all our ideas of balance.

We can forget and stand to the side,

we can deny what we once said,

we can kiss the black lips of night—

we are the only ones touched by the flames of night,

we are the only ones who believe,

we are the only ones who will never

admit it.

You can talk about everything that you’ve dreamt.

You can talk, you don’t have to fear the dark:

someone will hear you anyway,

but no one will ever believe you.

The city where she hides,

burning with flags, lies under a snow-covered mountain pass.

Hunters chase wild animals out of Protestant churches,

blue stars fall into the lake,

killing slow-moving fish.

Oh, tightrope walkers dangle above the streets.

They balance in school

windows, inspiring awe.

They avoid the gulls on the lake

that grab weightless golden potato chips

out of her hands.

Where we once lived,

we didn’t have time for peace or reflection.

We struggled against the sharp reeds of the night,

threw off our clothes like counterweights down dark elevator shafts,

so we could be suspended in the air for one more night,

not loving and not forgiving

not accepting and not believing,

angrily experiencing the best days

of our lives.

The city where she finally hides

touches her gently by the hand,

and shows her all its warehouses and storage.

Oh, ports where transported

Senegalese prisoners gather,

dark meat of hearts,

ivory of eyes,

oh, those cellars packed with cheese,

welcoming Protestant towns,

where you can sit out Judgment Day,

where they have such learned lawyers,

such impregnable walls.

Where we once sat with her,

warming ourselves in kitchens

near the blue flames,

not a trace of us remains. Time, that old tightrope walker,

fell a hundred times, then got up a hundred times,

despite broken collarbones and metal teeth,

time doesn’t care which way he moves—

he licks his wounds then once again dances with the gulls.

In the city where she managed to hide

there are such bright-colored dresses and blouses.

The Chinese students and pilots have such

velvety skin.

Oh, the fresh mountain air,

the feeling of blood rushing

after exhausting kisses.

She didn’t leave anything behind where she came from,

not a single voice or curse.

Life is a joyful tug of rope.

On one side are the angels.

On the other—lawyers.

There are more lawyers.

But their services are more expensive.

Saint Francis built this city for surfers and heroes.

He brought ships from royal fleets

to these quiet bays covered with fog.

The Spanish jumped onto the shore,

Russian sailors came by rowboats and Chinese prospectors for gold

stitched the night with lanterns, surprised by the shadows in the hills.

And each church they established was like a weary voice—

there will be enough freedom for everyone, as long as you don’t keep it all for yourself,

share the bread and coal during winter,

and look at the sun through the glass bottle of the ocean.

There is enough gold for everyone,

but only the bravest will find love!

It takes a thousand years

to dig out the bounty of the earth.

It takes a thousand nights to learn the ways of the local fish,

a thousand words to commune with eternity.

The plague descends on the holiday port,

young girls and teenagers follow it out of churches,

daring, golden skinned, full of their first secrets

and Catholic hymns—

share your books and bright-colored clothes,

share your coffee and fruit.

This city is protected by moats and fortified walls,

so much joy has been brought here from all over the world,

what shall we do with it,

what shall we do with it?

I know Saint Francis protects her,

when she appears at conferences and in libraries,

protects her every time she walks through the shops,

counting the pennies she has to live on,

protects her from enemies, protects her from friends.

He is annoyed when I advise him,

share your patience with her,

share your weariness, share your joy,

who else can she rely on in this city, if not you,

who else can we talk about in this life, if not her,

who else are we to protect,

who else can we envy,

Francis?

What are your sins, woman?

Who will count the stitches on your opaque body

where veins slowly flow into your palm?

Who will think of asking directions from strangers

whose voices possess you in your sleep?

Who will be brave enough to stand at the head of your bed

to watch you choking back the tears,

like snakes coiling around your throat?

What are your troubles and what are your secrets?

Nothing can be hidden

nothing lost will be returned.

Why ask forgiveness from skeletons,

that lie in the garden

under rosebushes?

She answers, “There’s always

someone who will remind us about each of our losses.

There’s always someone who will not let you be,

who will pull fear out of your body like weeds.”

Autumn approaches. Honeyed voices

and songs fill the churches.

All Christians are united by images of saints on icons,

like pictures in a family album—

beloved and familiar since childhood, a light that accompanies

us through life; the closest are those saints who

took the splinters from your hands when you were a child.

What are your worries, woman? Where are your men?

Betrayed and contrite, angry and hated,

they pronounce your name like some concoction—

which couldn’t alleviate their pain.

Moons waxed and waned in your window—

someone collected and assembled them

like the thick layers of an autumn onion.

She does not agree: “Moons that have waned

cannot teach you anything

and extinguished stars, like the eyes of linguists,

fail to pierce through

the darkness of the world.

“There’s no light, no wasteland, no fires on the river,

no name to remember tonight.

Love is the ability to arrange stones in the waters of the night.

Love is the ability to see how everything is born,

how everything dies,

how everything is born again.”

Women who live beyond the river,

where the ground is full of silt

and the streets are paved with red brick,

wake up and go to the river’s edge

and wait for what the water will bring them that morning—

laundry that escaped someone’s hands,

baskets set adrift with vegetables

or infants.

Water is made up of secrets; you must

be careful or you’ll be pulled into deep wells,

where creatures with fish heads

and delicate tails wait—loved and betrayed.

If bridges existed,

if I could cross over to the other side,

I would have done so long ago.

How can I forget about you,

I see the marks your nails made on my arm,

but how can I remember your face,

if you always ask me to turn off the light.

On this shore, past the factories and boilers, the skies burn

and dead girls in bright gypsy skirts

hover in the air above the rooftops, peering into chimneys,

singing into them, like into old vacuum-tube microphones.

No one tells the women, who live on the other shore,

about the young strays,

who hide every night in the spilt

gold of the apples, watching them on the sly,

as they take off their light dresses and take

the pins and poisoned combs out of their hair.

Whoever finds themselves here will fish

every day, throwing their nets into the mist,

and place red hearts at their feet,

plucking them out of the fish

like tulips.

If only I could get to the other shore,

walk past the cold shadow of the power plant,

see the birds that steal earrings

and little gold crucifixes set out on windowsills.

Feel the dark rise out of the river at night.

And know it will be gone by morning.

Winters are not like winters,

winters live under assumed names,

and unpleasant events are associated with them,

such strange things have been happening to us,

such sorrowful partings, such losses,

such expectations, such returns,

such insults, you want to sort it all out,

but you don’t know which came first, or last,

such confidence that everything you are doing is right,

such unwillingness to accept the obvious,

such snow, as cold as the war,

such sieges are planned, such escapes occur,

such blue trees, such green planets,

such bright hills and twilight valleys,

even when you are not with me, I know where you are

and what you are doing right now,

I know what you are afraid of on winter nights,

what you recall with joy, what you recall with sadness,

what you see walking through the yards at night,

what you hear in each voice, each splash and sound,

what you feel approaching this home,

what you find in the dark corridors,

what concerns you, so later, at the front door,

you nervously react to the smallest movement,

you regret that he still waits for you,

you are happy you don’t have to say anything to him.

The birds in the sky look like the combs in your hair.

The snow under our feet resembles an engraving.

The snows pass, and in the green mist

of every Maytime

women stop time in the kitchen,

cooking moons as if they were cheese.

At night warm smoke rises from the pots

and the yellow moons

endure, and even the heaviest

only leaves ripples in the river.

Every moon has its own space in the kitchen

among the knives, drawers, and scales,

and each name is as long and full as a drink,

drenched with the voices of women.

Their uncertain weights

are lightened with cries and songs,

the women carry them out to the shore

for refugees, runaways, and killers.

The suns of fishermen and the stars of shepherds,

pour light, like song,

on the dark bronze shore birds

and carp heavy with silver.

Because all the women stick to the mist,

forgetting during the day but remembering at night

secrets engravers, weavers, and antiquarians

shared with them,

they stand for a long time by the fire,

taking on thousands of poisons,

as long as the mud lies on the bottom,

and the silence grows cold on the rooftops.

As long as their moons last,

and there is enough light,

grass grows to penetrate the dead,

grass grows to hold on to the living.

I say, “So what if nothing is understood?

So what if we have to start everything all over again?

Every soul inhabits a body,

and every door leads to a room.

“Every space is full of its own radio shows.

Every heart grows flowers and algae.

So what if all this could have been predicted?

So what if you have no idea how to talk about this?

“I passed through these twenty-four-hour twilights,

I know how to fight off attacks and trauma.

But I still have so much love left

that it could stop the plague at the gates of the city.

“I know how the fire dies down in a woman’s voice.

I carried that poison in my own pockets.

But I still have so much tenderness and anger

that it could raise lepers and hanged men from their graves.

“So they will follow me through the golden nights—

tired clowns, defenseless sleepwalkers.

So what if you have no idea where to begin?

So what if nothing comes of things between us?”

She listens to me, slightly swaying.

She walks out and then returns.

She is silent, agreeing with me about everything.

She smiles, not believing a single word I say.

May your delicate throat never get cold

and may your night songs never end.

The devil will stand over you with a bronze military horn,

blocking the fierce tides at your headboard.

Let the smell of wind never disappear from your T-shirts,

let it play in your hair forever.

I will live in the sound of Sirens, like worries,

recognizing your breath in their harmonizing voices.

I will eat bread in detention centers,

sleep with black refugees in gyms,

find your aroma in the dry air and

overripe earth like a testimony at midnight.

I will sing of this ruined country,

disintegrating from the poison in its blood,

I will remind everyone who passes by of their guilt,

I will chew the twilight rich with color.

The sun rises in the east every morning past the market,

there is a different reason for each loss,

there will never be a silence like the one over your building,

there will never be a moon like the one just past your shoulders.

May you be warmed by wine someone else opened,

may tenderness fill your careless speech:

children will learn to love when they learn a kind of love

they can understand, untranslated, whether summer or winter.

What will you remember about these times?

Memory washes out all the voices,

memory doesn’t remember any names, any titles,

but you must remember, remember each of us.

Remember how we were in love with your face,

even if you didn’t like it, remember it,

even if you didn’t believe how serious our diseases were,

even if you didn’t doubt the hopelessness of all our attempts,

even if you can’t remember our names,

even if the colors of our banners annoyed you,

the language of our declarations of love,

the biographies of our saints,

the weapons, wine, and books in our houses.

Remember everything we wrote to you in our letters,

remember how many of us died in faraway towns,

remember how many of us were broken and sold out,

remember at least one of us,

even in the passing.

Remember how we’d catch your words,

remember our failures and our amazing feats,

our loyalty, our courage, our fears,

and carry our love with you like old sins.

Whether you want it or not, there will be nothing without you.

Our hearts rest on river bottoms like naval mines.

Remember each retreat, remember each attack—

if you can, remember everything till death, at least.

And then she says,

“I know how this will end:

it will end by everything finally ending.

I will suffer, you will keep catching more and more of the dead,

releasing the ones you caught before.”

But I tell her,

“No one will suffer.

No one will ever suffer again.

Why does poetry even exist,

why do canals and shafts open up into the air?

“Why do we fill the emptiness

with poetry and holiday carols, why prepare escapes?

Any decent poet can use words to stop

the bleeding.”

Then she asks,

“Why do these decent poets behave like children?

Why do they live like aliens and die like criminals?

Why can’t they end that

at least?”

So I say, “Because it’s hard to live with other bodies,

because the holy men of words have their own incomprehensible plans,

because there are no decent poets left,

just thieves and charlatans.

“They chant the pain away in animals and children,

catch feathers entangled in branches,

just live, choosing

between death and unemployment.”

That is why everything will end by starting again at the beginning,

falling into the throat and lying on the retina,

filling us with love and oblivion,

instantaneously

at conception.

It’s all up to us.

You touch the atmosphere and disturb the equilibrium.

Everything we’ve lost, everything we’ve found,

all the air that passed through our windpipes—

what sense does it all make without our pain and disappointments?

What value does it have without our joy?

After all, it’s all about your fingers.

You touch her clothes and know nothing

can be taken back, a name spoken once

changes the voice, coils around the roots of words,

so you struggle from now on with dead languages,

as you attempt to use them

to communicate with the living.

You touch her things and understand: behind each word,

behind each deed stands the impossibility of return.

Courage and sorrow push us forward—

love is irreversible, and we can’t decipher most

dark prophesies and visions.

What happens to us is only what we wanted,

or only what we feared. The question is

what will win—desire or fear.

The night will ring with music in the web

of our fingers, the room will fill with light

from the dictionaries we’ve brought.

After all, everything depends on our ability

to speak the dead language of tenderness.

Light is shaped by darkness,

and it’s all up to us.

Because we have to make this road ourselves

to the very end, because this road is not the last one,

we celebrate work, which has divided us into social strata and classes,

we sing of the dead, and the silence they left behind.

We build this road between far-flung cities,

we lay it down in the heat of summer and in winter flurries,

confidently calling out to each other in the fog,

never scrimping on our hate or our cigarettes.

Because every road is our joy and weariness,

because every stop is our silence and solitude,

because we always know who waits for us at home,

we understand dedication and we know there’s no going back.

Each of us will have lots to tell after death,

although we don’t believe it will ever come.

Heaven warms us up in worn-out jackets.

I have a heart, and I understand what it’s worth.

I have a voice, and that’s why I can communicate,

this road can truly be easy,

because a warm moon hangs overhead

and you can always reach up to touch it.

That’s why we build this road from silence and clay,

We stretch it out like a thread behind us,

between sound and silence, between heaven and earth,

between light and darkness, between love and oblivion.

Five years standing watch, five years as a worker,

dark sunburnt skin, hot veins.

When I return I will talk till

the last gaping fool walks away.

I will tell him about the cities, countries,

about the seasonal hired hands who

raised walls and towers all these years,

raised them like warriors after convalescence.

I will tell him how sirens called us to work,

how we slept in churches under the trumpets of the archangels,

and on the rooftop, crosses were as sensitive as antennas,

so you could listen in on the conversations of the saints.

It made no difference where each of us came from.

The differences were in the heavens above.

In the East we built churches and prisons,

in the West we built hospitals and train stations.

I know the real value of work.

I know hearts have the color and taste of oranges.

As long as there’s work, each of us strains,

stretching toward the warm summer air like a blade of grass.

I will say that the Lord stood between us,

creating arguments in our guilds and brigades,

dividing us by language, skin color, and names,

forcing us to put up barricades in the streets today.

So now the water in his baptismal fonts is always salty,

and his golden churches are full of Irishmen and Lemkos.[2]

My love, forgotten in the squats of Babylon at night,

weeps for me in all languages and dialects.

But someday, I will say to him, we will work again,

we will drag building stones again,

day workers of the world, mercenaries, rebels.

We are divided by our bosses and our fear.

But we are united by our perseverance and our hate.

Always returning here to these hills and rivers,

where guards and tax collectors stand at the gates.

Here the evangelists in churches have such dark faces,

like they’ve been in the sun all day picking grapes.

Here the men wear so much gold

that it’s a strain for death to carry them off.

Here the women are touched by such deep fears at night

that they paint their eyes blue.

Here children learn such dangerous trades when they’re young

that they can’t find jobs when they grow up.

So every war for them is like manna from heaven,

since soldiers are laid to rest with flowers.

Trucks from the South bring a plague into the city.

At midnight the beggars count the losses.

As always, it’s my fate to remember everyone

and return here.

I tell myself,

Autumn isn’t here yet.

But here are its evening trees, like regimental banners.

And here is her dark building, here are her windows.

Maybe she waits here too.

Maybe she even waits for me.