explosions are the new normal, you grow used to them
stop noticing that you, with your ordinary ways, are a goner
a trigger man and a sapper wander around the park
whispering like a couple — I wish I could eavesdrop
surely, it goes this way: where there’s a shovel, there’s a tunnel
where there’s a conspiracy, there’s a catch
where there’s God, there’s a threshold
stalky Ukrainians — where granny tends to a garden patch
surely it’s about the meaning of death, sudden as a mudslide
surely it’s about the vodka: to relieve mortal anguish
once you’ve shown you have any brain, they’ll brain you hard into
submission
hair impeccably parted — where you spot a geometrically neat
moustache
a trigger man and a sapper wander around like a couple
as the angel of destruction observes them tenderly from the cloud
we’re captive birds dear brother that’s it that’s all
black sun of melancholy shines like a shrapnel hole
(Translated from the Russian by Ostap Kin and Polina Barskova)
