It’s a murky morning of the fall;
lampposts quietly wonder in the fog like giraffes,
slanting clots of shadows shudder
behind the trees – that’s the dace of the past night
got trapped in the sea grass at the low tide.
it smells of smoldering felt and rottening plums;
autumn, thin-boned, is shivering
like a rickety colt
with cabriole bow-feet.
a little old lady is dragging an apple cart.
some leaves still redden – color of bale with blood.
a drizzle suddenly falls,
hundreds of ghosts rub dripping branches with palms,
extracting the mist.
two college girls took cover from mizzle in an arbor;
they’re smoking and tenderly feed each other with chocolate chunks
(like birds feed O-shaped orifices of their nestlings with worms),
and care not to smear lipstick on each others’ lips.
and the tipsy yard-keeper Yefim grieves on the porch,
missing his ancestral apple-tree orchard;
but in a less than a month
a pure-bred winter will enter,
and – lo! in the morning a snowfall is strolling outside the window,
like a noble, fairy-tale unicorn,
he is stung by a cluster of white gadflies,
and nervously brushes them off with a snowdrift tail…
(from Russian)
original text here: http://www.stihi.ru/2016/01/03/4920