Unfinished poem

Already past midnight, and every
other street lamp burns.
Wander about the town until
the sun appears at dawn.

Night has erased the year, the age
from the buildings' facades.
The town is bleak as a kitchen garden,
but the town is like the ark –

floating, floating, now it sails
into dawn's bitterness,
and between the windows, at the gates,
the age, the date appears,

and on the bridge over the river,
you return to yourself, weeping ...



Translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort