A woman you are. I can’t recall of what summer—
what events then occurred, what insults, and such…
Just a flat with no key, a flight with no ticket,
and a parting embrace with arms that don’t touch.
A victim you are, but one of what age,
of what complications that have faded by now?
The branches move freely there with their foliage,
but have they no trunk? Did the trunk die somehow?
Golden you are…but of what buried forest,
autumnal in spring or spring-like in fall?
The summer’s remains took revenge there with color
when you thought that that summer was the last one of all.
I cannot remember what it was that you wore,
can’t remember the scorn that so clearly I earned.
Just a flat with no key, a flight with no ticket
and the empty place to which I returned.
(translated by William Jay Smith and Vera Dunham)
Aleksandr Tkachenko
Born in Crimea in 1945, Aleksandr Tkachenko wrote several books of poetry over his lifetime, the first of which, On The First Light, was published in 1972. A professional soccer player in his youth, Tkachenko went on to become a founder and General Director of the Russian PEN Club, and in this role advocated for numerous writers threatened with imprisonment by the Russian state. He died in 2007 at the age of 63.
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