- 1. The Mail Cutter
The ice had not even begun to break,
no boat could possibly sail yet,
but the letters lay in a pile at the post office,
with all their requests and instructions.
...
- 2. My Universities
I learned not only from those
who brightly beam out of golden frames,
but from everyone whose ID photo
didn't come out quite right.
...
- 3. Flowers For Grandmother
I came to the cemetery in the hazy heat of autumn,
where the crosses creak as they split,
to my grandmother-Maria Iosefovna-
and bought flowers at the gate.
...
- 4. The Hut
And once again a fisherman's hut
opening to me late in the night,
suddenly as much a part of me
as the one along whose floor I used to crawl.
...
- 5. Pitching And Reeling
Here we go! We're re-e-eling!
The glass-framed instructions
rip off their nails.
A record player bashes you in the head
...
- 6. Ballad About Drinking
We had slaughtered a hundred white whales,
civilization was quite forgotten,
our lungs were burned out from smoking shag,
but on sighting port we blew out our chests like barrels
...
- 7. The Execution Of Stenka Razin
In Moscow, the white-walled capital,
a thief runs with a poppy-seed loaf down the street.
He is not afraid of being lynched today.
There isn't time for loaves...
...
- 8. Eight Year Old Poet
On the platform, in Pasternak's unerased footprints,
leaving behind your own print,
you stand a moment with me in farewell,
eight-year-old poet.
...
