Vera Pavlova

When the very last grief deadens all our pain, I will follow you there on the very next train, not because I lack strength to ponder the end result, but maybe you forgot to bring pills, a necktie, razor blades

To converse with the greats by trying their blindfolds on; to correspond with books by rewriting them; to edit holy edicts, and at the midnight hour to talk with the clock by tapping a wall in the solitary confinement of the universe.

Those who are asleep in the earth have an avian sense of the way. Gone, they sleep with shoes on, ready to rise and go to the pink, dispensable, barefooted insomniacs who had laced up for them the last pair of shoes.

Only she who has breast-fed knows how beautiful the ear is. Only they who have been breast-fed know the beauty of the clavicle. Only to humans the Creator has given the earlobe. The humans, through clavicles slightly resembling birds, entwined in caresses fly to the place at night where, rocking the cradle of cradles, the babe is wailing, where on a pillow of air the stars nestle like toys. And some of them speak.

Multiplying in a column M by F do we get one or two as a result? May the body stay glued to the soul, may the soul fear the body. Do I ask too much? I only wish the crucible of tenderness would melt memories, and I would sleep, my cheek pressed against your back, as on a motorbike

I am in love, hence free to live by heart, to ad lib as I caress. A soul is light when full, heavy when vacuous. My soul is light. She is not afraid to dance the agony alone, for I was born wearing your shirt, will come from the dead with that shirt on.

He marked the page with a match and fell asleep in mid-kiss, while I, a queen bee in a disturbed hive, stay up and buzz: half a kingdom for a honey drop, half a lifetime for a tender word! His face, half turned. Half past midnight. Half past one.

Am I lovely? Of course! Breathlessly I taste the subtle compliment of a handmade caress. Chop me into tiny bits, caress and tame my soul, that godly swallow you love to no end.