Questions for Sergey Gandlevsky
A swallow or a gulp.
Do you drink the water in St. Petersburg.
Is this idiomatic.
When did you arrive.
Is it rainy in Moscow.
Only today.
Do you still swim in the river.
Who is this woman
you hold at your side.
Ms. Swaggers-in-a-glass-jacket—
street slang or invention.
Did they remove
the brain tumor.
Was it successful.
What if it’s boiled.
Only today.
Frozen, and boiled again.
Was it The Last Day of Pompeii.
Why was it so large.
The frame of the painting,larger than this apartment.
The crouching figures—
the size of museum-goers.
Was it fire raining down.
Or splitting in the earth.
Trepanation of the Skull.
Is this the famous scudding
in Russian scansion.
Remember the students
clustered on a Midwestern roof
thick as hair,
hoisting beers.
Only today.
How would you translate this.
Lead, read, bed, dread—
just a cluster of rhymes.
Suggestion of narrative.
Did you sleep well on the train.
When you ask a friend,
did you sleep well on the train,
how are they to answer.
The heartbeat of traintracks.
Do you mean nature or suture.
Is Aizenstadt your father,
or the dream of a father.
Is Lena still your wife,
or the dream of a wife.
When do you depart.
Is this idiopathic.
How do starlings sing.
Remember how,
just before
it shattered
on the cement porch,
the glass
bounced once.
Do you have two kinds of eyes.
Will I see you again.
Idiom or invention.
What kind of song is this.
When you see it,
what do you see in the moon.
Are you not drinking now.
Only today.
Would you like another.
Can one impartially observe.
How will I see you again.
Was Pompeii destroyed in a single afternoon.
Only today.
The fires and writhing.Ore the eye and writing.
The small window
in the shower is hell to open.
Or hell is the small window
you open in the shower.
When will you return.
A lilac dusk.