“The tuatara lizard . . .”

by Elena Mikhailik
translated by Polina Barskova, Sibelan Forrester,
     Kevin M. F. Platt, and Boris Wolfson, with Elena Mikhailik

The tuatara lizard inhabits the same lair
As two stormy-petrel nestlings, both parents enemies of the
people.
She hasn’t hibernated for a long while, in the times that reign
outside
She has only one joy left — literary translations.

The nestlings spread yellow beaks wide, the stove’s maw is already
dark,
Food, firewood, residence permit, living space, and they have to
go to school, too.
And all around, no surprise, it’s plague and war once again,
And in this city in particular — plague, war and the blockade.

A prehistoric, shuffling gait suits the streets these days — ’tis that
kind of season,
You can sense danger from above quicker than hearing or reason
can grasp:
To the sky, there, with its aerostats, flak, and searchlights,
The tuatara lizard looks with a third eye, on top of her head.

She squints, unblinking, at the intermittent light,
The distance to the stars is ever longer, the road strange, dark,
and deserted.
The tuatara won’t die out today — she got double rations in the
mess hall,
A completely acceptable soup and a kasha of casein whey.

At home she feeds it to the nestlings, notes everything down
earnestly and with care —
The prices of bread, the living and dead, vibrations of the world
ether —
But she just can’t recall: was it freezing like this at night
Back in the days when the tuatara’s cousins ruled this earth.