by Maria Galina
translated by Anna Halberstadt

Every city has its own smell.  Odessa smells like sea, seaweed, thrown on the shore, hot and dry, but first of all, like Privoz. Rotting vegetables, dirt, oozing under your feet, a fat boy stands in the courtyard, paved with cobblestones, his fat mother, leaning out the window, yells—Monya, time to eat.  Monya, a grown up for a while now, bald, mother—in sheol for a long time, in gray mist, but still in the window, Monya, she screams, Monya, come home, you shmendrick!  Monya fixes his tie, his jacket, pulls on his shirt, slowly comes up the stairs, presses his arm to his left side, mother stands in the doorway, says, you wish me dead…

Lvov smells like moss, wet cobblestones, like sewers—in the historic center, what’s to be done, if they had not been touched by a man from the times of the Kaiser, pale shadows are walking among tourists, they don’t get it, how come Japanese, why so noisy, why are they laughing, making selfies, by the way, what does it mean, where’s Abraham, where is Sarah, where‘s pani Elzhbieta, where have they gone?  Why strangers in our apartment, and why don’t they notice us, everywhere restaurants, practically in every building, at every entrance, how many does one need, even though we aren’t against them, we are foodies too.

St. Petersburg smells like freshwater wind, enveloping face with wet sheets, particles of light moving around, light nets swaying in the wind, shadows tearing them and drowning, wet granite, a semi-transparent girl waves, she, like most, wanted to be a ballerina, all right, a painter, at night she hears someone walking in their apartment, the parquet squeaking, in the old cupboard crystal wine glasses shaking, grandma says, that’s her mom there, she smiles, turns into a photograph in the old album…  Light shrinks into a dot, into a pin head, wet wind comes from the bay, autumn seems getting denser and denser, a snow net sways behind the window, hands are transparent, for some reason, and wrinkled.

Moscow smells like all the pipes in the world, gas, cinders, plastic flowers in colorful tubs, metro inhales steam, time after time it pushes outside pale inhabitants of underground, they say, it also smells of rotten cabbage, a flat place, surrounded by flat garbage dumps, the small river is insignificant.  He came here as a really young poet, drank with everyone, slept with nearly everybody, became famous, gossips spread about his third wife, very young, she controls everything, speculates with his fame, he wakes up, the pillow next to him is empty, he gets up, puts his skinny feet into his cold slippers, drags himself to the kitchen, makes breakfast, a soft-boiled egg drips on his knees.  If he had a cat, he would tell him, that both of them are great guys, and how they love, when someone strokes them on the back, but for some reason there is no cat here as well.

London smells like Clorox, like perfume in a shampoo, like
rotting tide, wet planks, tiny waves, upright vertical light.  Women
in black overcoats, thin ankles, in pumps, chin is slightly tilted, otherwise close to perfection.  We are strangers here, let’s stay, turn into shadows under the bridge, trains will rumble up there above us, decent citizen will be reading the news, something is again amiss in the royal family…  No one will find us, nothing will brush against us, we are shadows ourselves, among the shadows of frightened female city dwellers, finding their way in the docks, in the wet blocks of buildings, someone follows us, dark and scary, someone stands in the fog dark and scary, someone keeps silent across the street, dark and scary, someone follows us, someone goes after us.

by Maria Galina
     translated by Larissa Shmaylo

There is no station here, the old man said.
But I remember precisely that there was.  I remember the station
square…the nut sellers.
And apples.  Apples were sold in buckets.  Yellow apples with
broken peels.  I guess they
just fell from the tree.  Nobody bought them, but the merchants
still sat there.
Perhaps, the old man said, it seemed that way to you.  False
memory.
What—what about the apples?
Apples-tend to appear to people in the first place.
But somehow, she objected, somehow I got here.
There is the possibility that you have always lived here, said the
old man.
There should be a train station anyway.  Every city should have a
place to leave it.  Leave it
altogether. Otherwise, this city is absolutely no good.
There is no station here.  Perhaps there once was.  A long time
ago.  Once there even was an
airport.
What? she asked.  You can’t leave here?
If you want, I can take you on a boat, the old man suggested.
No thanks, she said, thanks a lot.  Not necessary.
Then get out of here, said the old man.  This place is shot through.

by Maria Galina
translated by Larissa Shmaylo

throw me up higher
so I can see everything at once
your cheese factories your creameries
your poorhouses

medieval stars
black jagged forests
cities and roads

deer with thin legs
wading across a tar river
hedgehogs and toads

endangered
how we feel sorry for them

an old beautiful
smuggler in a jeep
listens to jazz
singing along
in his trunk is
all the gold of the Aztecs
slaves and camels
he will be shot
at the first turn

a black digger
of amber lies in a quarry
a knife in his chest
the knife clamped in a fist
a pool of blood
runs into the gray sand
in the dark waters
of the seas of the times of the Pleistocene

a pimply demob
forever disappears
into the wilds of the station
this gypsy
will descend nearest
nothing will come of her

almost at its zenith
a wall of light
rises on the wall of darkness
both are beautiful

either
a rainbow in the sky
or a speck in the eye

by Anna Glazova
translated by Alex Niemi

humus births the sour air of respiration

we
breathe with this gloom,
rhythmically drinking in our own darkness

the quiet deaths
of seeds and plants.

out of every possible life, the swamp is dearest.
the gill fibers of every quivering toad,
and setting down on the water

skater’s shoulders
a heavy heart.