"How to describe…”

--Ludmila Khersonsky (trans. Valzhyna Mort)

How to describe a human other than he’s alone –

what to add that he himself won’t guess to add?

Pockets full of posies? A little lamb for Mary?

What else is there to cast at a man?

A human is alone whether he dies or

snores. What else to say about a sleeping man?

A man is sleeping or simply turned to a wall?

A man turned to a wall not to see his nation.

Another turned to a wall between four walls,

a man who turned to a wall, weary of war.

Ear of the war: so much noise from a single man,

as if a whale was birthed into a common shell,

as if fear was trapped in the heart’s punchbag.

A lonely human is dust,

where to run from dust?

Where the nose points? But a person needs lunch.

A roof over his head, a sun over his head, and also to laugh.

Blood over his head, and also to bleed,

one man for all man.

No man for one man. Anybody? No one.

A man in trouble, in death, in office, in line,

in vogue, in disguise, in fight: everywhere alone.

A brown-haired man, a redhead, a blond,

a white man, a black man, a rainbow-man,

one person: singled red with sorrow, by one wall.