(edited)
1
Can't recall my conception's true hour,
My reminiscence must be lopsided.
I was cooked up in sin, after dark though,
And saw light not until it was time to.
I was born not in throes, nor in malice:
After all, 't was nine months not nine years.
In a womb, I thus served my first sentence;
There's nothing attractive down there.

God's messengers, I'm very glad
You spitted mold and breathed upon,
So, finally, my Mom and Dad
Made up their mind, and I was born
To dark and inconspicuous times,
Today, as old as fabulous,
When sentenced to enormous times
Were counting halting places off.
Some, rousted on the cook-up night,
And plenty had already been,
And yet to think they're still alive,
My good old honored kith and kin!
2
Forward, vigorous thoughts! Forward, dear!
Have your say, dear lines! Have your say!
It's the first time that I, by decree,
Had been freed in 1938.
If I knew who'd been dragging it out,
I would take it out on the scamp.
Nonetheless, I was born and lived out:
First Meschanskaya street, at the end.

There, in a small room, right next-door,
Behind a thin partition wall,
A neighbor with her mating boy
Were dawdling o'er a vodka bottle.
So modestly, so plainly lived:
Doors, all along a corridor,
For more than 30 families
One only square meter john.
There, teeth oft chattered out of cold,
And quilted jackets wouldn't warm;
It's there that I for real learnt
What was a copper penny's worth.
3
Neighbors paid little mind to banshees, and
Mom got gradually used to them, also.
So would I, frisky baby of three years,
Give no damn to the air-raid warnings.
Only all from above is not heav'n born,
So the folk blotted out fire-bombs,
And a little assistance to battle-front
Were my sand and a jug, outworn.

And sun was piercing in three beams
Like sifted thin, through ceiling vents,
Down on Cyrillych, Eudokim
And Guissia Moissejevna.
Say, she would ask him: 'How's your sons?'
And he would: 'Missing, poor guys.
Ah, Guisska, we're a family one,
Your kin are also martyrized!
Your kin are also martyrized,
Which means that you are russianized:
Mine - reckoned not among alive,
Yours - innocent, sent out to jail.
4
Now, I grew over soothers and nappies,
Was looked after, and nurtured, and cared for.
Yet they rated me a miscarriage
Although I had been properly carried.
Off the windows would tear the masking:
'Captives driven, whats there to dread?!'
Our fathers and brothers were coming
Home, to theirs or to somebody else.

Aunt Zina cut a dash in threads
With snake'n'dragon prints upon,
That's the Popovs. It's Vovchik's Dad
Had come back home with spoils of war.
The salvage seized out of Japan,
The salvage seized from Germany,
At last there came Bonanza-land,
An altogether luggageland.
I took my father's shoulder-straps
To play with, on the platform, while
Civilians were a-flocking back
Home from evacuation sites.
5
They adapted a little, came around,
Quenched hangover and then became sober;
Who had seen theirs back, finished crying,
Who had not seen 'em come, finished sobbing.
Vitka'n'Genkas Dad dug Metro tunnels.
We were curious why, he replied:
Every corridor ends with a blank wall,
Whereas tunnels lead out to the light.

But Vitka with his bud would give
No heed to his Dad's prophecy,
Our common corridor had he
Left for a prison corridor.
But he had always been a dark horse,
Refused, when driven to a wall.
He passed along the corridor
And ended up against the wall.
But fathers lived to their minds,
Whereas, regarding our concerns,
We closely scrutinized this life
Entirely on our own.
6
All, from our age to almost one-year-olds,
Used to go in for scrambles until blood ran,
Whereas youngsters, in basements and ground floors,
Craved for giving up lives under tanks, and
Not a bullet had fallen to their share:
Go to trade school, get on and don't pine!
Not to venture, nor dare. But they did dare:
By refashioning files into knives!

Abruptly, they would run in lungs,
All blackened from tobacco tar,
As deep as up to their light,
Collapsible, three-color hafts.
At times, these sniveled criminals,
Involved themselves in sell retail:
Exchanged with German prisoners,
These knives, on building sites, for bread.
At first, they gambled for a coin,
For petty cash with chuckleheads,
And here romantics were a-goin
From gateways off as plunderers.

Times have been for there to be basements;
Deeds have also been: prices went down,
Channels showed waters due destinations,
And they flowed into where they were bound.
Sons of former sergeants and majors,
Climbed as high as the glacial runs
Insomuch as from corridors theirs,
They considered it better off down.

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