Prospettiva Nevski [English translation]

A thirty-degrees-below-zero wind

unhindered over the empty piazzas against the bell towers

at times sounding like bursts of machine-gun fire

disintegrated the accumulations of snow.

And around about the fires of the Red Guards

lit to drive away the wolves

and old women with rosaries.

Sitting on the steps of a church

we waited for the mass to finish and the women to come out

then we watched with absent faces

the unnatural grace of Nijinsky.

Then his impresario

fell hopelessly in love with him

and with Russian ballet.

The winter with my generation

the women bent over weaving frames near the windows

One day on Nevskiy Prospect

I happened to encounter Igor Stravinsky there.

And the chamber pots under the beds

for the night and a film

by Eisenstein on the revolution.

And we studied shut up in a room

the faint light of a candle or an oil lamp

and when it came to having a chat

we were always looking forward to it.

And my teacher taught me

how difficult it is to find

dawn in the twilight