You sleep. A nightscape
Anzhelina Polonskaya
– translated by Andrew Wachtel
You sleep. A nightscape. And apple trees,
like nuns, stand silently.
Empty branches, without gifts.
Why did you come in tattered clothes,
as if atoning for someone else’s guilt?
You won’t find penance here.
Life without words.
No one above the lamp
tearing the light into dry strips
to beg, “save me.”
A distant train, like a spasm in the heart,
carries everyone else off,
to the point of no return.