“Pale blue and a flag inside, can’t see which one . . .”

Maria Stepanova

Translated from the Russian

Pale blue and a flag inside, can’t see which one.
Living people, two, chase a ball. A live one
In a cook’s apron stretched across his belly,
Holds a white cigarette by the café’s back door.

A woman, glasses perched upon her living nose.
Living dogs are straining at the leash.
Airy summer shirts, light jackets,
As expected of the living, billow in the wind.
Nothing gives away the place where all this is going down.

Here no one lies facedown in water, no one
Inexplicably refuses, in
Violation of all the rules of decency,
To get up, revive, rejoin the world of the living.

Even the ball, look, it doesn’t lie, it bounces.

May 24, 2022

Feature Date

June 20, 2023

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English Copyright © 2023 by Ainsley Morse.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

Featured Poet

Maria Stepanova has long played a central role in post-Soviet culture as a leading poet of her generation and essayist. Her many awards include the Andrei Bely Prize and the Joseph Brodsky Fellowship. Her novel In Memory of Memory (2017) was recognized with the Big Book Prize and the NOS Literary Prize, among others. Originally from Moscow, she currently resides in Berlin.

Featured Translator

Ainsley Morse teaches in the Russian department at Dartmouth College and is a translator of Russian, Ukrainian, and former Yugoslav literatures. Her research focuses on the literature and culture of the postwar Soviet period, particularly unofficial or “underground” poetry, as well as contemporary russophone poetry, East European avant-gardes, and children’s literature.

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World Literature Today

March 2023

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The mission of World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma's award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, is to serve the international, state, and university communities by achieving excellence as a literary publication, a sponsor of literary prizes, and a cultural center for students. Now in its tenth decade of continuous publication, WLT has been recognized by the Nobel Prize committee as “one of the best edited and most informative literary publications” in the world, and was recently called “an excellent source of writings from around the globe by authors who write as if their lives depend on it” (Utne Reader, 2005). WLT has received 23 national publishing awards in the past 17 years, including the Oklahoma Governor’s Arts Award in 2016. WLT is a proud member of the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP).

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