Non-past tense

The century is ending… I take them out — and again

I look at photos of friends…

here's Tolik (smiling)…

here — Vova…

and here — we are in Kabardinka, and Andrey

against the sea — gazes serenely

(in Afghanistan he will die in a year,

and it will be autumn, and comrade Brezhnev

will gaze from a poster at the people,

and I, toward that poster

will walk along the echoing pavement,

and tears will drip from my chin

onto a white scarf with a blue stripe)…

here's Vasya (after the army, at the dacha)…

here's Yura (flipped the bird at the lens

and is saying something to me… no doubt,

I've cheated on him again with someone…) —

so little life behind us yet!… —

Valerka's face (a detached look…

off-camera my friend is busy masturbating,

and it seems: his face is floating…),

Georgy

(by the entrance with a cigarette,

and next to him — a pretty boy…

a transient boy —

that summer we

loved him together, up and down

in the bushes behind the garages… and in the apartment,

creating a little bedlam,

loved the boy simultaneously

from the front and from behind, — we were

sixteen that summer…),

here's Seryoga,

and on his shoulder — my hand, —

we stand, embracing (Transbaikal Military District,

and Sery is still a virgin… for now:

the soldier's rifling is not yet worn,

it's still winter and the snow hasn't melted…

everything ahead!… on the back — a date:

Seryoga wrote:

"THE TWENTIETH CENTURY", —

a funny date… a whole epoch!) —

I look at photos of friends…

each of us has — our own road:

straight and not so…

only Andrey

stands by the sea (clouds frozen,

and a white sail behind his back,

and seagulls behind his shoulders, like wings),

like the god Adonis — eternally young…

(1998)