In an otherwise quiet snowlit night
the chelloveck ahead has shuffle-skitch shoes.
I have clock clock boots.
The fog train to Voksal at this distance
hoots like a toy. Some meters trailing
someone’s step is a sticky squick-squick.
As I turn left, I think of nothing
save cognac, cognac and koshka (Marusya),
the mild entertainments of loneliness so far removed
from my mother tongue:

through snow-covered courtyards the dogs hours ago abandoned.

What good is it to be fluent in one’s own language
when the mashrutka slush and hiss
down Yulitsa Kikvidze in the distance?
At home, the cat chews the cords to the blinds
of the kitchen window, her wants
more important than mine.

he drats and tolchocks till he viddies the
malenky merzky grazhny grazzy nazz
and shives from guttiwuts to gulliver
the poogly plenny all razrez razrez

tree cheenas itty up to govoreet
with dva vecks when the bolshy britva's done
one slooshies slovos without shilarny
the other skorry sobirats each one

prestoopniks plot, chelloveck and ptitsa
crast dva nozhes, tolchock the collocol
the ptitsa privodeets pyahnitsas
with krovvy on her rookers after all

glazzy for glazzy, zooby for zooby
to oobivat prestoopniks nadmenny
the rozz becomes so deep steeped in krovvy
he goes o'er a prestoopnik, a plenny

the zheena's sneeting cheesting nachinats
jeezny and krovvy are so dorogoy
a veck can kopet but cannot kupet
to crast brings britva, bitva, doubtful joy