The Bears

by Alexei Parshchikov
translated by Wayne Chambliss

And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.  Kings, Book 2 (2:23)

There are fewer and fewer animals in the capital.  Less and less often
are the torches of bears
raised above the tall

towers of apartments.  More and more often, they fall down shrieking

in an eclipse.
Snorting, they lick
the ears of stone sailors on rooftops.

Semi-transparent.
More like tea leaves than bears.
In deserted circuses,
they are wrapped in tarpaulin
like giant candies.
Their symmetries were beaten out
with crowbars,
until they were bent to the good
and it was made plain:
better a cow in India than a bull in Spain.  Even so, we offended Elisha —
two score children and all half-witted —

and down the hill he went, flapping like canvas, pigeon-toed, tender,
made soft with pride,
as we are, by rage, before we die.

We were off to the country to gather a muckle of unbound pages.      Laughing, we plucked

the books of Mao.

We were naked as syntax.
The Word moved among us.  It moved us.  Exquisite and vicious,        we wagged our tongues at

the prophet:
“Behold, Elisha’s is the light!   Even bald!”
two hairdressers cried.

Two Medeas emerged from the forest.  Two bears electrified.
Two she-bears, one great and one small, lunged at us in a fury

to asphyxiate to maul. 

Crimea

Perched on one foot, latching a sandal.
First I see an olive tree — and then the magnetic tree.
Orbits of objects, carefully balanced.
Flick the pupil and, as if by prayer, a lizard is vanquished.
The sea clicks, transmitting foam that plots at random
a group of flies.  Turn hard
and you are met by a Khan, flanked by a pair of spindly birds, picking through axes of rotation — like a battle made of glass, now in shards.  Poppies blister the loam.
Let the slack-jawed run through stone to Judgment.
Those struck dumb in adoration —
for the initial precision of blood, the first rotation — will be saved.