Vera Pavlova: 29

The two are in love and happy.
He:
„When you are not here,
it feels as though you
had just stepped out
and are in a room next door.”
She:
„When you step out
and are in a room next door,
it feels as though
you do not exist anymore.”

Vera Pavlova: 59

Writing down verses, I got
a paper cut on my palm.
The cut extended my life line
by nearly one-fourth.

Vera Pavlova: 20 One Touch in Seven Octaves III

First, cursory caresses, on the surface,
light, a kind of coloratura: crumbs of pizzicato
in spots which seemingly require
a brusque, tempestuous treatment,
then with a bow across the secret strings,
the ones that were not touched at the beginning,
then across the non-existent strings or, more exactly,
the ones we have never suspected of existing.

Vera Pavlova: 2

My parents were virgins.
At twenty-two, even then it was unusual.
and although Dad was known as a skirt chaser around the women’s dorm,
he visited women in order to get some food,
because he was living on his stipend.
At first he visited Mom also in order to eat.
And when at the school they started talking about a possible wedding,
someone slipped her a copy of
„How a Girl Becomes a Woman.”
Mom threw it out unopened.
It was scary for them to make me.
It was weird for them to make me.
It was painful for them to make me.
It was funny for them to make me.
And I absorbed:
Life is scary.
Life is weird.
Life is painful.
Life is very funny.

Vera Pavlova: 71 (Self-Portrait in Profile)

I
am
the one
who wakes up
on your
left.

Vera Pavlova: 21

The first kiss in the morning
tastes like the first kiss on Earth.
My waking soul is innocent,
as I lie next to the tenant
of my best dreams.
When I caress him, I know:
a kiss is preverbal,
a word is a kiss’s junior.

Vera Pavlova: I Am in Love, Hence Free to Live

I am in love, hence free to live
by heart, to ad lib as I caress.
A soul is light when full,
heavy when vacuous.
My soul is light. She is not afraid
to dance the agony alone,
for I was born wearing your shirt,
will come from the dead with that shirt on.

Vera Pavlova:14

No love? Let us make it!
Done. Next? Let us make
care, tenderness, courage,
jealousy, glut, lies.

Vera Pavlova:12

Tenderly on a tender surface
the best of my lines are written:
with the tip of my tongue on your palate,
on your chest in tiny letters,
on your belly…
But, darling, I wrote them
pianissimo!
May I erase with my lips
your exclamation mark?

(Translated from the Russian original by Steven Seymour)

Vera Pavlova: 8

A beast in winter,
a plant in spring,
an insect in summer,
a bird in autumn.
The rest of the time I am a woman.

Vera Pavlova: 8

A beast in winter,
a plant in spring,
an insect in summer,
a bird in autumn.
The rest of the time I am a woman.

Vera Pavlova: 91

dropped
and falling
from such
heights
for so
long
that
maybe
I will have
enough time
to learn
flying

Vera Pavlova: 64

I walk the tightrope.

A kid on each arm

for balance.

Vera Pavlova: 4

Fell in love in sleep,

woke up in tears:

never have loved anyone so much,

never has anyone loved me so.

Had no time for even a kiss,

nor to ask his name.

Now i pass

sleepless nights

dreaming of him.

Vera Pavlova: 3

On his back, on Grandma’s bed, my brother was flailing his tiny legs.
He’s gonna fall, i thought. But he would not.
Why isn’t he falling? I wondered. He was flailing his legs.
He’s gotta fall! Pulled him by the legs closer to the edge.
Still would not fall. Pulled some more. He was flailing his legs.
Pulled a bit more. With a horrific crash he fell head down, the dummy,
and bawled so loud that Grandma came running:
Who left the baby unattended? – I said: Mom did.
But not out loud, trembling in the dark under Grandma’s bed.

Vera Pavlova: If There Is Something to Desire, 9, 17, 18

9
I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.

17
Why is the word yes so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,

so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it.

18
—Sing me The Song of Songs.
—Don’t know the words.
—Then sing the notes.
—Don’t know the notes.
—Then simply hum.
—Forgot the tune.
—Then press my ear
to your ear
and sing what you hear.

Vera Pavlova: If there is something to desire