Andrey Gritsman

That seems to be the end of it. 

All these entangled women's legs, 

sick souls savoring their sickness, 

slowly moving, slowly falling 

undetermined, vanishing horizon—

everyone is tired of it. No jump cuts, 

no manufactured punch lines 

produced from an enormous cookie jar.

This is the end of the eschatology of passion:

cool cavern of the museum, warm lips, 

flesh wanting to be flesh and sweat, 

rather than a shining televised shadow. 

Have a glass of cheap local wine, 

look at the heap of somebody's 

dark warm hair 

somebody who still remembers—

giving.

This is the life we have given up on

and now are afraid to live.

We are asleep in front of the VCR

after a hard day,

snoring, the tape is winding up,

disappearing, counting down the

remaining thirty minutes,

as night continues and we have to get up

early tomorrow, get out of

the mortgaged quarters, turn on

the engine in the leased space

and go around our lives:

pushing, pulling, counting, 

counting down, recycling, 

shopping, lunching, reconsidering, 

turning down, and offering.

The screen is dead and the film is over, 

no one is there at one in the afternoon

for an “Italian lunch,” 

screwing and, after lighting a cigarette together, 

thinking of love and death 

(they become oneness), 

when the shops are closed, 

wine gets warm 

and pasta cold.