Tenderness consists from bits of patience

by Ekaterina Simonova
translated by Anna Halberstadt

* * *

Tenderness consists from bits of patience.
And food.
I am 7 years old.  Summer, Sverdlov street with dense acacia trees,
Two-story houses with wooden staircases.
During the day I get sent to a bread factory across the street
For a hot loaf of bread.  There is enough change
To buy a bun with sugar frosting for 3 kopecks.
I eat the bun, and then
I can’t help it, but try the sourdough rye crust.
At home I get scolded for tearing off the crust, but the next day
I get sent to buy bread again.  There is enough change
Again, to buy a bun with sugar frosting.

My nephew is 5 years old.  Grandpa has
Learned to make cotlety * for him the right way, and tasty.
Nobody else can’t do it,
Even grandma is learning from grandpa now:
She adds an egg into chopped meat, a small onion, put through
the meat grinder,
Soft crustless bread, soaked in milk, no pepper.
Now he has learned, how to make pancakes as well.
In the beginning he put too much sugar, not anymore.
He pours the dough in the pan, hot oil spatters,
He grumbles: “Go away, all of you, leave me alone.”
Grandson — just like his granddad: “You’re a bad grandpa.  You
don’t play with me.  I don’t
love you!”
After dinner they fall asleep on the same couch, content.
With the same childish expression on their faces.

I am 41.  For twelve years now
I have been the one taking the garbage out, since
Somebody has to do it.  On the run
I pick up a bag with peels, an empty bottle,
Packaging from a dozen of eggs, in the last moment I notice
An empty box of candy, I open it, and I understand:
When the last piece of candy always dries out,
Because each one of us thinks, that the other should eat it — this
is love.

*Cotlety — a Russian variety of meatballs

* * *

Beauty: purple cauliflower on a garden bed,
Lifting its leaves slowly, like a woman
twisting the hair on the back of her head into a heavy bun;
Tiny mushrooms growing into a garden bench, —
Yellow, like father’s fingertips,
Soaked through in nicotine, a metal odor of childhood;
a small white flower with a well in the background —
devoid of taste, devoid of smell, bending in the wind
unbending again, not leaving a shadow;
worn out plates, faded towels,
forks with bent teeth, a dull kitchen knife
with a yellowed handle and a rounded blade.
Bits of bread and of conversations, a yellow corolla of dill, the Sun,
Trying to go down for several  hours in a row without much
success.

Life gets out from you for a moment
As a long and narrow flame,
Not questioning, who we are, where, what for.
You shield your throat from wind with a palm,
You lift up the collar of your sweater,
Put on a jacket, button up, because —
This is the only thing, that protects you, does not allow you to
leave.