[February] 23

By Dasha Suzdalova

Translated from the Ukrainian and Russian by Philip Nikolayev

***

[February] 23

Snow hasn’t yet covered
the train window
its glass still uncrossed
by tape
everything’s
suddenly grown so old
the eye of time is slimy swollen
the living still sleep the sleep of the living
and of the land
— whether or not dawn is already breaking —
the hard mouth not yet unstitched
the living dream the dreams of the living
and we aren’t yet knocking in morse code
on our childhood’s arid cities calling
new mutes

* * *

If only
anyone at all heard, saw
how they jangle, how they glitter on you,
these bones:
the world in which you dare
dance like this is a
success

* * *

Object on Deoccupied Territory

There was everything there:
taste, color, scent, texture
the laws of physics acted upon it as expected
gravity held it unfailingly to the earth
atmospheric pressure squeezed it (without excess)
a passing cloud
calmly cast its shadow across it
yes, it had sufficient characteristics
(at least for a newspaper piece)
except that there was no name
due to insufficient time (or perhaps desire)
it was simply called:
that which defies naming

* * *

Out of the corner of the eye
to record the crime scene, where the freshly
dismembered aspires to reunification;
but aspiration is just another slaughtered word,
only the outlines of material evidence quaver, as if in an act of
creation,
of breath lifted from constriction —
and if even they cannot endure,
how could we

* * *

Just think how little of her
is still left for the soul to hold on to
and already she’s gazing at
cosmic catastrophe
as those stretch past
stellar innards spitting out
a long ending saluting her
not in the least surprised
by her tenacity