Vyarka Kozareva

You’ll never find in the ponderous books
The rules how to live like a waif paper boat
On the tarmac surface without rain,
How to start a journey
After a thousand breathings
With an impudent chlorine after-scent
From the humble square
To the sky
Eloquently cerulean
For the olivewood to arch and the cherubim to flit,
How to free gratitude
For the impossible chance
To step a bare foot into cloudy seas
That keep mute fish inside their maws.
It’s a blessing to attain
The scales on your eyelids equal
And the circuits of your blood concentric.

This morning
The rain behind the hospital window
Made me speculate on what would the feeling be
If I were a wet bird.
Later, a friend called to say hello
And I forgot about my philosophy.
Sometimes a pinch of irony imbibed with witticism
Helps me abscond from normality
Pretending that pain is a non-affordable brooch
Fastened to flamboyant party clothes.
As my grandmother would say,
Through the verdant wr(e)ath
One could see the true rays of faith.
Her meek smile used to reciprocate
To my scepticism.
Friends are hope, she said,
Woven into everyday pieces of miracle
Because heart doesn’t need any burden of proof
Nor an argument from ignorance.
Her simple principle,
Love is innocent, many-sided,
A long sentence with various tails.
Today’s— a crystal tear under the tongue
Of a timid sparrow.

My mood fluctuates
In the flying evening.
Of course, I like flowers.
Abundant variety
From dear friends.
But the dwarf lemon tree
Is my favorite.
It makes me happy
Radiating freshness
On my writing desk.
Mother,
I remember you telling me
Lemon juice is high in citric acid.
That may cause my teeth to lose calcium.
What a willful teenager.
Admonition again and again.
Mother,
Do you think
A few of these pellucid lemon tears
In my refreshing water
Will be capable to bleach
All the irretrievable offences
My mouth uttered.

Many years ago
The place was an abyss
Then the fluid lava
Overflooded it
And the time chronicles
Made it even.
Mended pieces of history—
A mixture of proofs and mendacity
Which grains refused the sieve of refinement.
Living between concave and convex,
Now—a reason
For broken bills.