Polina Barskova
Translated by Catherine Ciepiela
1998
what matters is not at what place but what moment the uncoupling decoupling of movement outward begins: in December precisely in Okhta probably identical buildings of crap leatherette on which scars of SovHousewares glow in the night meat vegetables footwear - abstract metamatter. filth flies as galoshes gallop across the wasteland: so earnest, you know, such candor and cha-harm in those nightly sessions! where the elevator drops you Dante-like circle by circle to the basement where a blind cat gnaws on a piece of glass or the anemic grove at the edge of the well-fed park where a musing imbecile pisses on a rotting mat of leaves with casual dignity like a faun perched on one of Peterhof's fountains. the boudoir protocol of familiar and formal address eight poets one more monstrous than the next in his despairing artistic malice, the burning bush of crude come-ons flares predictably with goodbyes - again the deus ex machina misses his cue. Morning, December, river. laminated stamped approved for the shining hell of resurrection.
Relocation
At the start of every relocation, he was seized by a massive sadness of calm A sadness of perceptiveness Crumbled buildings covered with crumbling graffiti Fellow passengers on the train Jutted out of the humid midday With exceptional trust they submitted to his most cherished procedure: He slowly undressed and then dressed them in peeling layers of time First unveiling in the fat squinting old guy with countless strata of chin A mischievous defenseless tender cherub Then fast-forwarding the slim-legged flat-chested preoccupied nympho To a quintessential neat bluish sour grandma (who she was not destined to become - skin cancer, that sweet little mole on her chin) And why should he be concerned - relocation was by now a familiar ritual Of his cleverly arranged life Twice a year he threw off his skin And returned to his native self Which completely came down To his tie to this city He didn't imagine himself a filching Orpheus or fibbing Odysseus, Who followed the call of nature into hell. On the contrary - hell was his home town. Rejecting him like he had rejected it With that seductive disgust Which floods the city's Every radial line, every arrogant festering canal; The years it had spent without him Securely concealed from the naïve returnee The city's childlike growing changing gleaming soft new little body. Sour faces dropped comments fits of cursing smells No longer related to him, they related to someone else, related to no one. For several days he pursues his business With unnatural stubbornness thrusting the past on the city As though this unnatural operation Could presto! turn the past into a present That had something to do with him. And once, in the season when faded nights trickle down faded wallpaper, He leaves the bedroom of his incidental Girlfriend of plentiful words and lips She sensing a long and messy reckoning He walks out onto the street Also by the way sensing the approach Of forgiveness Of dark-skinned trembling fingers down on his elegant head My son you are forgiven Everything's black red gold He gives a lewd smirk When Out of the avenue's red shadows (yes, a ghost story!) A red car appears Can't brake in time He falls easily and heavily Saying something to himself Repeating Repeating Repeating Repeating Repeating