Today

by Valery Chereshnya
     translated by Izabella Mizrachi

Taking out a garbage can
concludes an empty day.
A warm breeze carelessly stirs
clothes hanging outside
as a doctor would stroke the hair of a child:
“Everything will be alright.”
Maybe.
To stop within this crawling life
wherever it finds you,
and take it all in:
a toy on the sand
an old chimney, a bird . . .
On a summer night
to touch the fleeting velvet of the world
just for  a moment and let it go.

A word calmly said at teatime
concludes the evening,
warming the shade of this night lamp
(Well, what do you see, our  cross-eyed spy?
Two midnight bodies,
and today pours into tomorrow
with a jump of the second hand,
as darkness clings to the windows . . . )

I am mortal, and especially today.