Running water is cold, the river from Eden flows east,
a lowercase letter appeared on a page of rough copy,
the flowers’ pollen settled, fragile life seems exhausted,
slant rhyme craves to be used, but the hand refuses.
What kind of word, uttered, leaves salt in the mouth?
Soon your death is exhausted, sinks like a stone. There
is the source of false light: in the impossible world’s center
the fallen angel Lucifer distorts the music of the spheres.
Everything disappears in a motley flame, rising to heaven.
A host of angels inscribes the letter “S” on a banner.
Again the apple is bitten, flesh forbidden,
but that which God created cannot be destroyed.
Do you see in unhealed sores the dark foliage of apple trees,
exhausted woodland creatures in crippled forest giants?
“Theta” sleeps and “izhitsa”* dozes, “yat” slithers from under your hand,
beetles move in brittle armor across the tree-trunks’ bark.
I don’t want to count my losses or hear the terrible roar of flesh.
The spirit betrayed us, but matter transforms to language.
The focus of a former life hides wherever it can,
and stuttering words sprout from the fertile earth.
Translated by Ruth Fainlight
* Izhitsa is the name of a Russian letter taken out of use by the spelling reforms of 1917 (translators note).