« Trace
Department of Returns
Over the city of phantoms a Tu-144
ascends, a moon of starry dreams.
Stumbling Tank Drivers St. meets up with it,
blind like the day’s last bus.
Behind the base,
meadows grow with dust. The spans of bridges
yawn and the river flakes away, carried by the dirty
current of years. And the heat station’s chimney
cuts the horizon, thin like a gnawed bone.
The staff in gray trench coats mobs the stores,
parades with shopping bags along the main promenade.
Only at dusk does the waning light pour into
cold things.
And that’s when you return there,
a boy under a spell of summer lighting.
You walk up to the bare wall
of the supermarket. And the first kick of the ball
tears the silence like a heart attack.
Translated by Piotr Florczyk