Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

“This is makeup my father
bought me. These cigarettes
I took from my older sister.
My mother left me
this silver jewelry she wore
till she died.”
“And this,” I ask, “who’s in this photo?”
“My girlfriends,” she answers,
“they really hate me for my
golden hair and black underwear,
which none of them have.
My friends are ready
to tear me to pieces
for all that summer sultriness
that heats up in my
heart.”

What is the point of poetry?
To write about what everyone already knows.
To talk about things we are deprived of,
to voice our disappointments.
To speak and provoke
anger and love, envy, hatred,
and sympathy. To talk
under the moon
hanging above us, with all its
yellow reflections looming down.

Every grown woman
has this,
this sweet melody,
which you can only hear
when her heart begins to break,
which can only stop
when you’ve broken her heart.

This fox
howls at the moon all night
and avoids my traps,
acting like nothing happened,
like nothing concerns her.

Once the jewelry she wore
around
her neck
grew in value.
The blanket in which she wrapped herself
was a field of sunflowers
in which birds
found stray seeds
of tenderness.

When she grew angry,
rage rose in her veins,
like sap moving up a rose stem.

When you’re in love it is most important
not to believe what’s said.
She yelled, “Leave me alone,”
but really meant,
“Tear out my heart.”
She refused
to talk to me,
but was actually refusing
to exhale.

As if she were trying to make things worse
for me than they actually were.

As if our biggest problem
was the air
we breathed.

I ask her,
“What are you drawing all the time?”
“These are men,” she answers, “and these are women.”
“Why are your women always crying?”
“They cry,” she replies, “for the wind,
which was hidden in their hair;
they cry for the grapes harvested,
which tasted tart in their mouths.
And no one—neither men in clothes smelling of smoke,
nor children with golden scorpions
of disobedience in matchboxes,
can make them feel better.”

The love of men and women
is the tenderness and helplessness we receive,
a long list of gifts and losses,
the wind tossing your hair in May.

Oh, how hard it is to rely on the one
you trust, and how easy it is to be disappointed
in the one who touches your lips at night.

Some things are whimsical and invisible,
no matter how you color them,
they will always stay the same:

a star hangs above you,
the air roils with warmth.
So much light is hidden
in every woman’s throat,
so much trouble.

The best things this winter
were her footsteps in the first snow.
It’s hardest for tightrope walkers:
how can they retain their balance
when their hearts pull to one side?
It would be good to have two hearts.
They could be suspended in the air,
they could hold their breath,
as they closely examine
the green jellyfish in the snow.

The best things this winter
were the trees covered with birds.
The crows looked like telephones
used by
demons of joy.
They sat in the trees, and trees in winter
are like women after breakups—
their warm roots intertwined
with cold roots,
stretching into the dark,
needing light.

It would be good
to teach these crows songs
and prayers, to give them something
to do on damp
March mornings.

The best thing that could have happened,
happened to us.
“This is happening because it’s March,” she said,
disappointed. “This is all happening
because it’s March:
at night you spend a long time searching
your pockets for bits of ads,
in the morning emerald grass
grows under your bed,
bitter and hot,
smelling like golf balls.”

In the summer
she walks through the rooms,
catching the wind in the windows,
like an amateur sailor,
who can’t set
the sails.

She stalks drafts,
setting traps for them.

But the drafts tell her,
“Your movements are too gentle,
but your blood is too hot,
you’ll never get
anything in life
with that disposition!

“You lift your palms
too high
to catch the emptiness.”
Everything that slips
out of our hands—is only emptiness.
Everything
we have no patience for—
is only the wind blowing
over the city.

The sun in the sky at dawn
is like an orange
in a kid’s schoolbag—
the only thing with real weight,
the only thing you think about
when you are
lonely.

If I were the postman
on her block,
if I knew where
she gets those certified
letters from,
maybe I’d understand
life better,
how it’s set in motion,
who fills it with song,
who fills it with tears.

People who read newspapers,
people with warm
hearts, good souls,
grow old without letting
anyone know.
If I were the postman
on this block,
even after their deaths
I’d water the plants
on their dry balconies,
and feed the feral cats
in their green kitchens.

Then, running down the stairs,
I would hear her say,

“Postman, postman,
all my happiness
fits into your bag,
don’t give it away
to the milkman or hardened widows,

“Postman, postman,
there is no death,
and there is nothing after death.”

There is hope
that everything will be
just like we want it,
and there is confidence
that everything happened
just like we wanted it.

Oh, her voice is bitter
and imponderable.
Oh, her handwriting is difficult
and indecipherable.
That kind of handwriting
is good for signing death sentences—
sentences no one will ever carry out,
no one will ever figure it all out.

She likes to walk barefoot and sleep on her stomach,
so she can feel the oil flowing underground,
the trees being born in the empty darkness
and the water rising to seep directly under her.

She knows where all the courtyards lead in this city,
and the paths that thieves use from cellars to rooftops.
She knows how to catch kites and blimps without anchors
aided by street patrols and air shepherds.

Every teenager would like to catch her by her shoulder,
knowing that she would escape anyway,
leaving behind only her warmth,
and not believing that she was actually just there.

Every killer watches her disappear into the darkness,
hoping that she will come to him in his dreams,
convinced that she will forget his name.
He’ll never understand
what I mean
to her.