Epidemic of minuses

by Tatiana Shcherbina
translated by J. Kates

I’m in shock.  And I don’t like to be in shock.
In France, frost blighted the artichokes.
Instead of a legitimate plus, an intolerable minus.
Not the artichoke matter, in that those were covered.
The Concordia — meaning agreement — foundered
a black colonel who looted the treasury goes to the firing squad.
Syntagma aka Constitution burns Athens,
it seems there’s an end  to endorphins, forever.
Forever — to life, yours, mine, and the kids’,
a start-up — as a minus — finish-line of the world.

If the Earth is burning in a higher fire,
and a chill batters our globe, our little home-sphere —
a Guy Fawkes smile is a “useful resistance” —
a mask of purgatory.  V for victory — disinformation.
Anonymity deservedly gets it in the teeth
and the Russian hamster squared his shoulders to the heap,
to clamber out of the last — the very last command of strength,
hallucinates elements, reason gone into storage.