translated by F.D. Reeve

The keys to those days are still lying around.

I unlocked the door, like three hundred years ago.

I turned on a light. And lit up from the bottom,

stretched in a row along the ceiling’s edge—

as in an icebox door a rack of standing eggs—

was the Ionic molding of the Empire cornice.

I’m a thief of memories. Where do they keep

the thousand-carat objects of sentiment?

The bits of nostalgia? the chrysoprase caprice?

Where have you put them? The little tubes of lipstick

didn’t recognize me. The cabinet was empty.

My letter was sticking out of the wastepaper basket.

The iron was still warm. The tart aroma

of a bathrobe passed. A rat was finishing your lettuce.

“Sister,” I thought, looking at the rat, “I’m your brother.”

And flung the keys at the Empire cornice.

And eggshells rained down on the lettuce.

And suddenly a hundred-kilowatt reproach

shook everything. The Ionic molding cracked.

And there hatched forth—no way I can explain it—

thousands of loudmouthed, white, blue-gray birds.

“It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!

You nest robber!” They shoved each other and shouted.

And they dirtied all the hot-shit publisher’s books.

I know you well, you zoological garden

of passion—nostalgia’s guide, blind females

of two minds, clipped wings of the divine life

and the wet snowfall of compassion—

as once we fed the gulls at Simeiz.

And in you come with the crowning rebuff:

“Goddamn it! Against this place looks like hell!”

“You want to see Liza?

Ah, the previous tenant?

She left. Went abroad, I heard.

The building has an alarm system …” A

squad of cops was coming up the stairs.

I shut the door, like three hundred years ago.