* * *

Eyelashes are stinging. Tear took a fancy to the chest.
I feel with no fear that thunderstorm is coming.
Somebody strange hurries me to forget something.
It is stuffy, but nevertheless I deadly want to live.

I raise myself from my plank bed at the first sound
Looking around with wild and sleepy eyes,
Like that prisoner in pea-jacket singing his rough song
In the time, when the strip of dawn rises over the jail.

2 March 1931, Moscow