A Woman on the Right

by Gennady Aigi
translated by Anna Halberstadt

There is that,
surprising me by creating
its hair;

There is that, that is ashamed of falling
and can fall, and apples are rolling
on strings,
and the strings are thin
and they are cold

There is—A, an empty A
there is a circle of amazing As
there are needles with jasmine blood
there, as if washing over
the deer’s eyes and horns,
and here, where I find myself,
it seems, branches after branches
are being displayed.

Let’s ask for a snowstorm—
it will start circling within the gaps
of shop windows

Start calling, omitting the name,
as if throwing out
white crisscrossing lines

And there, there is—this back,
changing me,
in the way deer impact the woods,

And like a murder, it exists and it’s not here,
and it’s torn in a horrible way
from the very person by its name,
as if in a dream
he was gifted
an iron shape of the crossroads
and has been told
this was eternity,

and I turned unhappy
since I believed it

and I am crying, crying and crying
in every corner of myself.