By Joseph Brodsky

The English Poetic Rendition, by Anna Polibina-Polansky

* * *

("Я слышу не то, что ты говоришь, а голос...")

I hear not what you speak of, but, rather, a voice.

I watch not your garments, but the even surface of a snow-white.

It's a pole where we sit, not a room, and I would rejoice

The face that, by our traces, is lead away from chilly notions.

Once I knew by heart, all hues of the scope.

Now my spectrum is totally white, baffling oftalmologists.

I could have been lucky to sleep with you;

If with a song I have to cope,

The tune is left, lacking knowledge, yet.

But such luxury would have lead me to the soil.

So an old lady must be sighing at her hut, to her years, due...

So she is sitting trying to boil

Up eggs at a casserole, humming my tune.

I knew how to use stain removers. They inalterably worked.

So the chalk powder helps to cure pimples.

So those dirty bastards the males, cause the ripple

Inside you. Nearby your light dresses, I sadly smirk.

1989/tr. 2020