I earned a doctorate in your cut-price lips
in a sordid guesthouse in Leningrad
passport-less and against the law
but drunk as a disinherited king
Fifty rubles was a fortune
and you, nude, a mannequin of burgundy and gold
They gave us keys to the wedding suite,
a hospital backroom with no toilet
We stayed for a vodka with lemon
and a Menshevik bore on the corner
When chitchat died down, such anxiety,
you started to unbutton your trenchcoat
It wasn’t easy in the Soviet Union
to go to reception for condoms
Light years away from routine
a swallow nested on my balcony
I don’t know what happened to us or why,
what we ran into that crazy night
We babbled corny things very fast
and prayed, our mouths undoing us
We were killing ourselves from wanting to live,
overreacting, vaudeville of bohemia
Not sleeping was sweeter than dreaming
and aging with dignity,
a blasphemy
You with a beret, me with a beard, long live Che,
born again to a new man’s faith
The Berlin Wall hadn’t fallen
Nor had Sarajevo’s powderkeg burst
because the revolution's check had an Achilles' Heel
And floating among the ruins
a sparrow was widowed on my balcony
Yesterday you were leaving brown, coffee-colored
Now I haven’t seen you for almost a half-century
You were blonde, if I don’t remember wrong
I said, and lying, you’re even prettier
You accepted a non-alcoholic beer from me
The sun on the tiles had died on us
Funerals, and with nothing to say
I saw in your pupils a badly-dawn indigo
I don’t know why I keep writing this song
but my heart bleeds
when I dig into it
I found out you married a judge
and Leningrad is again Saint Petersburg
We didn’t even mention if we stayed
Pass me your address
And back in the office
a sparrow crashed into my balcony
Because the revolution's check had an Achilles' Heel
And floating among the ruins
a sparrow was widowed on my balcony