Memory’s Loop

On the rails fell ash. The city wheezes: “Snow.”
Beneath the skin pulses a ragged, wild sound.
The shop window’s cataracted – clouded glass,
He sees fingers – alien, frozen hands.
But in dilated pupils still smolders the steppe,
Each night sprouting into a poisoned dream.

In the peaceful bedroom he lures himself into dream,
But into his lungs, instead of oxygen, falls snow.
There the horizon has slaughtered the charred steppe,
And silence is split in two by a jet-engine sound.
He falls face-down to the floor, clenching his hands,
Because from the windows into his bed pours broken glass.

In the kitchen, there exploded the cursed, overheated glass,
Is he home again? Or is this still a dream?
His wife reaches to lift him – she touches his hands,
But for him this touch is ice-crusted snow.
A tram’s screech in his throat – a metallic sound,
And the apartment corridor’s longer than that steppe.

He returned from the craters. But remained in the steppe,
Where every breath of air is pulverized glass.
Here every rustle is a dry detonation’s sound,
Here darkness does not heal, but tortures dream.
The yard’s not covered with frost but phosphorous, scorching snow,
And even in prayer he does not unclench his hands.

Deep in his pockets he hides his trembling hands,
Trying to hold in his fist the burnt-out steppe.
He need only look up – and his face is cut by snow,
Sharp as shrapnel that drives clean through glass.
He no longer sleeps – he falls into dream,
Where every moment is one and the same sound.

The city is a press that mints a ceaseless sound.
He digs his nails to the bone into his own hands.
“Iron on the rails,” lies to him his own dream,
But scars of rails have split in two the steppe.
He sees the fragments of himself, like shattered glass,
On which, again and again, mercilessly falls snow.