Coral Stanzas

—After Mandelstam

O City, o white filagree just below the grainy depths,

Can it be a reef which absorbs the star and moonlight,

O reef, am I flung, cast toward shoal, toward beach?

Is there water clear enough, soothes enough

Surrounding the far-flung branchings?

Bitumin pellicates fester in the vision

Falling like hell-snow, falling like hell-snow.

O into depths, more depths, your brother animal

Swims into the poisoned channels.

Brother animal, o white filagree, city of Venus

Light mote and tear duct festering in the hell-snow,

In the scurried depths.