hedgehogs and toads

by Maria Galina
translated by Larissa Shmaylo

throw me up higher
so I can see everything at once
your cheese factories your creameries
your poorhouses

medieval stars
black jagged forests
cities and roads

deer with thin legs
wading across a tar river
hedgehogs and toads

endangered
how we feel sorry for them

an old beautiful
smuggler in a jeep
listens to jazz
singing along
in his trunk is
all the gold of the Aztecs
slaves and camels
he will be shot
at the first turn

a black digger
of amber lies in a quarry
a knife in his chest
the knife clamped in a fist
a pool of blood
runs into the gray sand
in the dark waters
of the seas of the times of the Pleistocene

a pimply demob
forever disappears
into the wilds of the station
this gypsy
will descend nearest
nothing will come of her

almost at its zenith
a wall of light
rises on the wall of darkness
both are beautiful

either
a rainbow in the sky
or a speck in the eye