Vera Pavlova

*
Shall I drown (Ophelia)?
Hit the railroad track (Anna K)?
On this sleepless, snowy night
all I want is to be wanted,
all I need is to be needed
by the man sound asleep.
The elbow goes numb.
Love, under the bed, prompts:
wake him up, you’ll have someone to lull,
kill him, you’ll have someone to mourn.

*
We know how to love the dead.
The living we love clumsily,
vaguely. Even intimacy does not
teach us. Nor does long absence. Nor
grave illness. Nor old age. Only death
teaches us how to love. In love matters
death is a true professional!

Translated from the Russian by Steven Seymour