Translated by Evgeniia Shabaeva
Fakes are little fairies dancing in the air, falling on the city, filling every square, filling every alley, playing with the litter; at the Kremlin’s valley their dresses glitter.
People are so scary, people show no mercy when you are a fairy flying round Moscow. People don’t care for your simple pleasures. Silly little fairy, go hide your treasures!
Their dresses golden, their sandals silver, their faces (goddam!) send me quite a shiver . . . How much pain and sorrow can a magic creature store inside its soul till it bursts or glitches?
Who can even see them? Idle old ladies? “Sailor’s silence” inmates? Hippies of the eighties? Fakes are little fairies, injured, broken, sore, bitter testimonies of the lasting war.
That guy would bring the fallen back to life. He’d lean over the corpses, seeking light in their eyes; he’d cry and pray to God, he’d howl like a watchdog, poor sod.
He’d howl in full voice, but the sky was dark and silent; none of them came back. He buried them somewhere in the yard— I see it in my mind’s eye, ruined, charred.
Tall buildings, little kids, and old folk— and each is said to be a scary foe. I can’t unhear them screaming (is that sane?). My house had a backyard, just the same . . .
I see the darkness, filled with chthonic dread. Go raise at least one human from the dead. Go stand in prayer, in the scorching sun. Come have a talk with me, once you’re done.