A Love Poem
--Knuts Skujenieks (trans. Bitite Vinklers) 

I would like clarity. To exclude
A relationship's tangled yarn.
Not a word.
Let reaction suffice. 

So. Only so. And if the two of us
Are pitched alone against the world,
That we can instantly swing about
From face-to-face
And stand back to back. 

Would that be too much?
But a poem cannot be written
If one awaits the bullet
From the back,
And not from the front.

Both A Love Poem and At the Edge of the World were taken from 'Seed In Snow', which is the first English translation for Skujeniek. The collection was written while imprisoned for seven years in a Soviet Labor Camp during the 1960's. More examples can be found at Drunken Boat.