Dropping Osip Mandelsh’tam in a puddle and picking him out again … Carried by incandescent images of waves and swallows, white sails, black waters, autumn leaves, Hellenic Crimea and Moscow’s steel, lands of book, dome and cupola, lands of desolate steppe, I almost missed my stop and had to grab coat, bag and bundle you under my arm and jump in undignified haste; And it was raining, and in all the rush you slipped from my armpit and fell into a puddle face-down as a man does into exiled sleet and slush amongst a thousand foregone footsteps—mud splat into eyelashes,…
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