Pigeon Post

Lev Rubinstein
translated by Philip Nikolayev

Pigeon post?  What’s that?  What’s it regarding?  Not some anecdote
about how the left sleeve of my mother’s coat once got shat on by
a pigeon?
Is it not about how I have for the rest of my life remembered
every button, every fiber of that
terracotta coat?
Is it not about how I will always remember that coat even after
death, as if it were part and parcel of
my religion?

What was the message that that dratted pigeon wanted to convey
to my mother by pigeon post?
Was it a joyful piece of tidings or some unspeakable outrage?
Was it not the kind of news that my mother feared the most,
That I would fall under the troublemaking spell of Sasha Tselikov,
the boy who smoked behind the
garage?

Yes, it’s all true, mom, I’m not going to lie: I’ll come under the
influence of
Questionable types behind the garage, behind the shed and in
faraway foreign lands—if
Only so that I may continue, from time to time, to receive
These greetings from our incomprehensible life that drop on
sleeves.