In the body of the town I’m a pupil.

I wander along its entrails,

with my pack, at an easy pace

from place to place.

I know like my own five fingers

where things are—the smelly things,

the flowing things, where the tramps

get moved on, where they linger.

In the body of the town I love to settle

like pubic lice in trousers.

In the body of the town I’m a monk

for whom there’s nowhere to kneel

and as long as the place is possessed

by its crazy thunderstorm,

I’ll wander round, an alien

microscopic life-form,

Translated by Yury Drobyshev and Carol Rumens