Leningrado [English translation]

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