Amative Triptych Poem by Larisa Biyuts

I.
Like a grayish translucent cloud,
like unshed invisible rains,
purple mists of your murdered desires
cover the Vanity Land,
from above
from some grim, invisible heights,
the cloud oppresses your mind.
Resolutions in dust, your stultified vows -
like a grayish translucent cloud.
Will it shed rainwater someday
from above?
But your soul is badly attached
to desires, killed long ago,
and this deadly captivity feels
like some fetters, for body and mind,
worn by you as an act of penance,
like a grayish translucent cloud,
looming
threatening
from above.

II.
Heavenly shards in every puddle -
past summer fragments underfoot.
A pen-and-ink is overhead -
over the pearl and bluish amalgam,
trees celebrating widowhood
swaying their orphaned branches
to music made by wind and saxophone.
Dry leaves are shining brighter than inlay -
past summer fragments underfoot.
I step, as always, over them. And you?
Could you step over me? On the sly,
with a chill,
badly, sadly, the doubt
punches me
in the guts.

III.
Morning. Coffee for two. Empty apartment.
Empty. No air to breathe.
The present 'Without'
after the past and eternal 'With You.'
The ecstasy-with-you is always here.
Yours echoes mine.
It's ours - deep in us, it stirs,
and every exaltation like the first.
We'll never get accustomed to this wonder.
The salt over your skin. Unquenchable, hot,
I taste it, and the phantom of the feelings
and echo of the words are soaring
around. Now, alone, I gulp the air of the past.
My coffee's getting cool, and I am late.
Confound it.
Confound everything: I recollect.