Сочинения Иосифа Бродского. Том IV

At sunset, when the paralyzed street gives up
hope of hearing an ambulance, finally settling for
strolling Chinamen, while the elms imitate a map
of a khaki-clad country that lulls its foe,
life is gradually getting myopic, spliced,
aquiline, geometrical, free of gloss
or detail — be it cornices, doorknobs, Christ —
stressing silhouettes: chimneys, rooftops, a cross.
And your closing the shutters unleashes the domino
theory; for no matter what size a lump
melts in your throat, the future snowballs each «no»
to coin a profile by the burning lamp.
Neither because there is a lot of guilt
nor because local prices are somewhat steep,
nobody picks this brick pocket filled
with change that barely buys some sleep.

1981

DUTCH MISTRESS

To Pauline Aarts

A hotel in whose ledgers departures
are more prominent than arrivals.
With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain
strokes what’s left of the naked brain.
In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers,
beer smells of Germany and seagulls are
in the air like a page’s soiled corners.
Morning enters the premises with a coroner’s
punctuality, puts its ear
to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero:
the afterlife has to start somewhere.
Correspondingly, the angelic curls
grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly
white, while the bedding already coils
desperately in the basement laundry.

1981

EX VOTO

To Jonathan Aaron

Something like a field in Hungary, but without
its innocence. Something like a long river, short
of its bridges. Above, an unutterable umlaut
of eyes staining the view with hurt.
A posthumous vista where words belong
to their echo much more than to what one says.
An angel resembles in the clouds a blond
gone in an Auschwitz of sidewalk sales.
And a stone marks the ground where a sparrow sat.
In shop windows, the palms of the quay foretell
to a mosquito challenging the facade
of a villa — or, better yet, hotel —
his flat future. The farther one goes, the less
one is interested in the terrain.
An aimless iceberg resents bad press:
it suffers a meltdown, and forms a brain.

1983

GALATEA ENCORE