Show Me Your Breasts

When I am hungry I think of your breasts
— which I never got to see —
and your passing Russian glance,
while you passive and restless look around the room
like one of the three melancholy sisters in Chekhov
who drink tea all the time while they talk
of moving to Moscow

Oh, let us dance together tonight
in a nightclub in Moscow

Life has become so complex.
And you even play the piano and live with a view
of a cemetery, where the winter sun stands
speculating all afternoon
between the gravestones

Oh, let us dance together tonight
in a nightclub in Moscow

When I am hungry I think of your breasts
your Russian mouth, the yellow light in your kitchen
— which I also never got to see —
and of your lifelike wrist when you cut
slices of bread and slowly eat standing
looking out over the cemetery absentmindedly
listening to a Russian symphony by Rachmaninov

Oh, let us dance together tonight
in a nightclub in Moscow

But hesitating is wasting time: I want
to see your breasts! Chekhov drank champagne
on his deathbed and Rachmaninov died in the USA
the black hole awaits us all. So come
just as you are, let's go to Moscow!
Oh, I want to dance with you tonight
in a nightclub in Moscow.

Translation P. K. Brask & Patrick Friesen
© Niels Hav