Paul Klee's Boat

Two Poems AnzhelinaPolonskaya Paul Klee's Boat Soon it will be winter and soon a nightingale with a bandaged throat, a plum tree inbloom, and awhite hill dashed against thedoor. Illness arrives like Mozart, sitsdown at theblack piano and touches thevoice with a tone. I see January, a blockade, you're sketching Paul Klee's boat, big on petite. It sails along, the fool,not knowing can 't brush the wave from its eyelash. Somewhere a shutterbangs shut, and you bend toward the sketch. Mozart creates like a god! And the two of us, childless. We'd be husband and wife, together forever it seemed. But burned by Greeks and barbarians we fled, leaving no trace. Veiled from Solitude by the Atlantic Veiled fromsolitude by theAtlantic, the ships depart, leaving a faithfulrow ofwomen by the windows. In thequiet moments I can hear a most unfeminine cry resound along the walls. Yet, time's more merciful than God. The women depart, leaving thewalls to thewind. Of living thingsonly dogs remain at thisabattoir, alone on the coarse planks of theepoch. But, eaten by rust, what can the chains do? So one fineday they liberate thedogs. Above theempty sea only stars and ether will remain, only stars and ether. This will be eternity awaiting amiracle, in seclusion, searching fora place toput your head, nowhere to lay itdown in thedarkness. But the ships depart, sinking intoLethe. Malakhovka, Russia Translationsfrom the Russian ByAndrewWachtel Anzhelina Polonskaya was born inMalakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998 she has been a member of the Moscow Union ofWriters, and in2003 Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN Center. In2004 her book A Voice appeared in the acclaimed Writings from an Unbound Europe series at Northwestern University Press. The book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M. Popescu Prize for European Poetry inTranslation and for the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (aatseel) prize for literature intranslation. Her work has appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, International Poetry Review, Atlantica, Poetry Review, Stand Magazine, and Descant. Andrew Wachtel isBertha and Max Dressier Professor inthe Humanities at Northwestern University, where he serves as dean of the graduate school. His interests range from Russian literature and culture to East European and Balkan culture, history, and politics. His most recent published books include Russian Literature, coauthored with llyaVinitsky (Polity Press, 2009), and The Balkans in World History (Oxford University Press, 2008). March-April 2010 i19

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