Original
Ничто
Ты одна на постели лежала,Как за окном на небе луна сияла,А мы пацаны на тебя смотрели,Словно тех, кто умер застившие тени.
Мы смотрели, мысли искали, мечтали…А может, и не мы над тобою торчали?А может, и не ты на постели лежала?Взором свыше напоминая удава.
Да, это не мы…Мы же не тени,И на тебя тогда пацаны не смотрели.Ведь ты не то, чтоб удава,Но аскариду напоминала.
Translation
Nothing
You lay alone upon the bed,as, past the window, the moon shone in the sky,and we, the lads, were looking at youlike the frozen shadows of the dead.
We looked, we hunted for thoughts, we dreamed…Or maybe it wasn't us who hung over you?Or maybe it wasn't you upon the bed,with a gaze from on high like a boa's?
Yes, it's not us… We're not shadows,and the lads weren't looking at you then.For you were not so much a boaas a roundworm you resembled.
About the poem
The strangest of the early poems. A girl lies on a bed under a moon while “we boys” watch “like the frozen shadows of the dead” — and then every fact is withdrawn: maybe it was not us, maybe not her; she resembled a boa, no, a roundworm; and now, an hour later, she has become “a princess — Princess Lewis.” Where did the name come from? “Maybe it’s not you? And I’m not me? Then where are we, if this isn’t Earth?” A vision in which identity, insult and adoration dissolve together. The title is the only stable thing in it.