Mercader is the fate [by Stamatis Polenakis]

My fate is Mercader, the trains crossing, whistling the snowy steppes.

Mexico reminds me more and more of Russia. We are all covered by light rain, next to me are poor people digging hard earth with their nails, they feed on roots and stones but the years have slowly melted the eternal ice inside me; now I am nothing more than an exiled old man possessed by visions at night; rabbits and hens, naive animals comforting me, eating from my hand, how else could a Russian be living in Coyoacán?

Nothing can fool me anymore, not even the calm of this moment, today or tomorrow at the latest, the night will come and conceal us forever, Natasha!

Dawn finds me in my place as always, I open the doors of all the cages waiting for the beautiful white rabbits to return at some point, there will come a day when no one will remember us anymore.

We who lived in such tumultuous times.

(From the poetry collection Notre Dame)

Translated by Valerie Coulton and Vassilis Manoussakis