Ilya Kaminsky

Little daughter
rainwater-

snow and branches protect you
white-washed walls-
...

At the funeral I, embarrassed by resistance fighters
shuffling up to shake my hand

said:
I fold your daughter in a white napkin—
...

They say so much sky in his chest addicted him
Alfonso Barabinski goes to the Opera with chickens in his pockets.

He bites a hole in an apple and in that hole
He pours a shot of vodka.
...

If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body,
...

I kissed a woman
whose freckles
aroused our neighbors.
...

It is December 8 and my brother Tony was killed by the soldiers. December 8 and the police are reopening the Southern Trolleyways. December 8 when my wife lifts Tony's body from the ground,
...

Each man has a quiet that revolves
around him as he beats his head against the earth. But I am laughing

hard and furious. I pour a glass of pepper vodka
...

Motionless forgetful music of women and men
touching each forehead, breathing a soul into each immeasurable other,
on earth where we are, stranger, through madness unattainable
or grace, in difficult traffic reaching for each immeasurable other:
...

Yet I am. I exists. I has
a body,
When I see
...

Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air,
a story sung by those who danced before the Lord in quiet.
Who whirled and leapt. Giving voice to consonants that rise
...

Don't forget this: Men who live in this time remember the price of each bottle of vodka. Sunlight on the canal outside the train-station. With the neighbor's ladder,
...

"You must speak not only of great devastation
but of women kissing in the yellow grass!"

I heard this not from a great philosopher
but from my brother Tony
...

Through Vasenka: a herd of boys runs. With their icy hands they haul a policeman and for an apple a look they display the man on the asphalt.
...

I look at you, Alfonso
and say

to the late
caterpillars
...

I am not a poet, Sonya I inspect
the fragrant feet of younger ladies—

While deafness hums as a little motor
I watch her stand in the shower
...

I remember Tony arguing in front of his mirrors, the soldiers
were painting the trees, Tony sat

on the floor of white hair, and all the trees were
...

Running down Vasenka street my clothes in a pillowcase
I was looking for a man who looks exactly like me
so I could give him my Sonya, my name, my clothes.
...

Dr. Alfonso Barabinsky wants
to go outside
I hold him down with my smaller body.
He walks, runs from his shoes to my kitchen.
...

I watch loud animal bones in their faces & I can smell the earth.
Our boys want a public killing in a sunlit piazza
They drag a young policeman, a sign in his arms swaying
...

Love cities, this is what my brother taught me
as he cut soldiers' hair, then tidied tomatoes
watching Sonya and I dance on a soapy floor—
I open the window, say in a low voice, my brother.
...