We Drunken Here
by Анна Ахматова
We drunken here, we harlots,
in cheerlessness, we share.
Wallpaper flowers, wallpaper birds,
long for mist.
Your black pipe, its smoke ascends,
to ink-blot hallucination.
I wear my lithe skirt
for grace.
The window glass, rote sealed,
blocks hoarfrost and thunder.
Your eyes wary at me,
eyes of a black cat.
Ai, dread forbodes me,
death mulls on me.
And she, she who last danced,
she can go to hell.
This loose translation of Анна Ахматова's 1913 poem is based on Max Hayward's literal translation, published in "Modern Poetry in Translation: 1983".
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