the sleepers wake inside the dream - Galina Rymbu

the sleepers wake inside the dream, the awakened
doze on iron fainting couches, in the burrows of moles.
the politics of absence plays cards with itself.
inside every sign is a hallway, straight, down which
you walk alone.

there’s no sense looking back. from fear
clenching your fists in your pockets, rearing your body up
to meet the darkness, for tomorrow
no trace will be found of this exodus.

the sun
rises over a heap of buildings, inside events,
where every day,
now certified brain-dead,
another one, another two roll over like waves.

“beauty is in the eye of the beholder,”
says the rightist to the earth, spitting. and he will be right—
if we tear out this eye and find out what’s there—
inside every means of action, of vision
there are tiny grains, difficult seeds.
if we gather them, even here, we might once again sow
trouble and wheat.

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Galina Rymbu (born 1990) Russia
Translated by Jonathan Brooks Platt