Masha

Her bony fingers

whisper on the guitar

in our wooden corner.

Her withered cry “пора домой”

paints far away

imaginings of home.

We walk at night

along the pedestrian street, unimportant

figures, shadows under city lights

and stop for dirt-cheap pelmeni

drowned in mayonnaise.

She drinks her beer

Like a child drinks juice;

I bite my lip.

The city is cruel and swallows her;

cigarette coughs shake her skeleton.

On future nights

when I breathe smoke

and hear folk guitar

her ice-blue eyes will haunt me.