for a centenary

you’d been kept under a bushel

under my heart

like a child invisible

a relic in a chest

for a centenary

I’d been holding a thread from the

bird in the bush

in my hand thinking

it’d been the kite flying high

it was some funny kiddy amulet

a periapt

I’m apt to be thrown ashore

and I climb up the precipice

marring the layers of marl clay and grass

the gritty mix

of the homeland

the pastry of earth tasting like love

and strawberries

the pastry

pasted into my texts

my caress at halves with the blues

clenches up and

scatters like fledglings

the thread

jerks in my hand

I’ve been keeping you in the chest like my dowry

with braids

and an ancient baldric, with worn traces

I need to tell so much

the palate

of the sky won’t fit so many words

I rock the cradle

filled with letters to the brim

and weave the future

with a fine thread from that bird in the bush

I’m the bird in my hand

I’d lived overseas and came back

and I burnt those seas to ashes

Translated by Max Nemtsov