by Marina Eskina
translated by Ian Ross Singleton

The Prose of Life
Proza `izni

As for the prose of life, just let it be,
whether and what for it’s got poetry,
and what string, other than the one you pluck,
resonates with the wail of ambulance or fire truck . . .
If you wish, whip up odes to pans, stanzas to the salad,
all the same, they’re steamy for a ballad,
that refracts the whole wide world, like a prism,
until it’s got the ragtag sweep of truism,
idle and ruinous.  Undercover,
the defense and prosecution cotton to each other.
Raking up leaves, slitting your wrists,
you can be inspired, but you’d rather be obvious.
The prose of life doesn’t need to write a sonnet
to hold its own, get in some licks, tack an end on it.

Published in Cardinal Points, (Fall 2016)

by Marina Eskina
translated by Ian Ross Singleton

Janiculum
Ânikulum

At dawn, on the hill above, a rooster crowed and crowed
and woke and stirred my soul, reminded me of you, love.
I still see and hear your wry glance and awkward laughter.
Maybe because you’re not nearer, you’re dearer than all.

The hill’s shadow covers the sandy eternal city like the tide,
as if time wants to wipe itself out, level off its depth.
Sun melts his back, yet the victor stands astride.
It’s our turn to decide: Rome or death.

The world seemed unfathomable, and Rome left us stunned,
even the backstreets.  Where its “backstreets” are, who knows.
The riverbank,
a cigarette — the two of us shared one —
and the plane trees inhaled freedom’s ghostly smoke.

The sun slipped behind the hill to orbit the planet.
Try to prove the opposite . . .
A merry-go-round made

of neon motorcycles lost its momentum, then quit.
And a pony, piebald like that April, was led away.

Published in The Wax Paper, (Spring 2019)

by Marina Eskina
translated by Ian Ross Singleton

A Letter from Zürau
PisÝmo iz Curau

Dreams about mice bode despair.  The horde buries
the cat, then envelops the horse from head to hoof,
and the rider gallops astride mice.  This carries
on many times a night — I’ve had enough.

By dawn, I’m done.  What drives me mad is their bustle,
rustle, ruffle, rumple, overshoot, undershoot,
rattle of little bodies, the fuss, the tussle —
on the table are droppings, my shoes are well chewed.

In the morning there are three dots on the page
where yesterday I put a period or a question mark.
As if again the family were around at that age
when I was a boy, sent to sleep in the dark,

in the dark about exculpations, letters, piques.
What a shame.  It’s scary in dreams.  A slice
of light beneath the closed door.  This voice that speaks
to me is Josephine — the queen of mice.

Get some cats — that would probably do the deed.
Signing deeds, sentencing — as a judge I’m poor.
Then in reproach to me the cats will breed,
countlessly, until I can’t take it anymore.

PS: In Zürau, West Bohemia, Kafka wrote many letters to friends in Prague, and there he wrote the famous Zürau Aphorisms.

Published in Asymptote, (July 2012)

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.