In Juda desert,
in sunkness,
Marusenka washed white legs.
Green slime swam.
Three toads sat.
“Slime, where are you going?”
“Nowhere, I’m concentrating.”
“Toads: friends. And you?”
The toad-singer with the pea in the throat
had a guttural sound:
By the mountain we guard
the frosty body
of time.
It swells more,
we face down more.
The time till it’s decoded
is called expectation
it flies so fast
with a drawing of smiles
on the fire-pollen.
Yet the double-unity rim
displaces toward dead brother,
past people past things
jostling in the wrinkles
of its body and face.
How stuffy it is!
Hollow “was”
begins to be more than “will.”
Here, at earth’s sonorous origin,
we’ll set out the clock.
Sandstorm will spread the grain
and life-scales be equal.
Isn’t it all to be obedient?
Let’s stalk on with an uplifted lantern
and in redundant space
find the day that rolled under.
But Marusia, heeding the desert creatures,
hesitated.
Look for what? Here’s mussel or crab—
At the dead house but alive.
We’re like that—
not living is our shield—
without it we’re lonely.
Ach, Mariya always humble,
look at the receding ball.
D’you see the redfoam
fire from its retreat?
The times of a verb change on the move,
now they’re in the past, the pillar of salt
looks at the blinded, naked, voiceless
vampire time cleaned out.
Mariya sat down, her sad
palms warmed her feet,
and the creatures, choked with the wet trill,
were silent and a long way off.
The mere legs of Mariya
rayed pallor.
Translated by Dennis Silk