*

there is gray ice on the Black River -

April, Lenten, pre-Easter.

I fall into the Friday people -

once in the station air

the voice of mothers fell like that,

calling out from the darkness of the yard

their sleepy children,

but deeply succumbing.

factory morning whistle

sounds in me as if through water -

God must say so

through a long yawn.

and the wind carries snow dust

over the shallow Funnel.

and I've been lying about two years

under the Rospechat icon -

I live by following the shadows

people rocking the crib

and Yeltsin goes from house to house,

dancing with Osin in a squat.

and the hostel is like a temple,

into which the sailors entered,

coked up into trash,

resolve Russian issues.

now they post Easter dates there

with a thirty-year perspective.

and don't flush the toilet,

and they die ugly.