[The tsar sits on his throne as if he sat on bones]

The tsar sits on his throne as if he sat on bones.

Around him, a world of deserving objects,

and the tsar’s staff is strong, strong as Rakhmetov*

sleeping on his famous bed of nails

as an example to the young. A coffer stands

high as the throne which the tsar mounts—

he keeps his silver in an oak womb.

Some creature walks over the ruler’s skull

and his staff will strike it a blow,

as at our first mother Eve.

The Old Testament serpent sits in a tree

and picks up our thoughts, like radar.

And a blind mole who lives in the worm-eaten earth

has scooped out a dark burrow in the space

between an apple and a plum tree, as in the rind

of the world, and insinuated itself there.

Translated by Ruth Fainlight

* Rakhmetov is a character in Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s famous novel What Is to be Done? The revolutionary hero toughens himself by sleeping on a bed of nails (translator’s note).