By Joseph A. Brodsky

The English Poetic Rendition, by Anna Polibina-Polansky

* * * To Marianna Basmanova

Oh my dear one, I got out of my home, late to-night.

I meant to breathe with the air coming about from the ocean.

Like a fan, the dawn went out at the back rows, out of sight.

And the cloud reminded the cover of some concert piano ferocious.

Twenty-five years ago you preferred meat and dates,

You painted in gouache and sang; playful, in love we were mates.

Later on you dated with a chemist and got immensely stupid.

Don't  get me wrong, I am neither your mate nor a Cupid.

They see you in churches of provinces, at services for common friends.

They die one by one. Luckily there are distances longer

Than one between me and you. It all came to an end;

Your voice, body, name do not call me up. Some othere things, turn stronger.

To forget one life, another is needed, and I've lived it through.

Once you were hilarious, young; just a picture, reminds

Of sweet you. The memory encounters the time, but the time is untrue.

I smoke in darkness and smell the rotten sea. Comes the tide.

Tr. in 2020