It was after graduation
And all the gates were wide open to everyone
Like smiling mouths with fierce invisible fangs.
Transition – that stone-eyed gipsy woman –
Lived with us for a while,
Before she left to the East.
She used to tell our fortunes.
Once we were in the living room; she – in the middle standing tall.

This little wooden cross is for you, Steve.
Keep it in memory of your body
Lying dead on my former virgin laps.
Be brave! You’ll drink this bitter wine made of torn hearts –
Grapes I gathered through the seasons.
This bread is hard for your poor broken teeth.
You’ll eat it only under arches of despair
And then you’ll learn how to fly.
If you’ll be off your head or your food, remember,
Somebody else is going to grab them soon.

This white dress is for your red-lipped sister
Who’ll leave abroad to make her fortune
And the fortune shall make her the best in the West forever.
She’ll become so light that no one would catch her spindly legs
In her ascension into the air,
Following cindery innocent hopes.

Since you unconditionally gave all your three sons
To the Accident – my envoy;
Since you let them spend day after day, night after night
Playing the game of pleasure and pain with those cheeky girls – Corruptions;
Since you let their wives become night club dancers –
The ghosts of their children in dark corners -,
I give you, woman, this veil of rain
To wrap yourself during the lightless hours.
That’s what she said to my mother.

Your city will be awarded
A chain of precious holes in the streets,
Thousand of children living and getting married
In the gutters, smoking never-ending cigarettes and their lungs for good,
Suicide among industrialists and monastical former grinning gangsters,
A morning sun half asleep in the murking fog of gasoline,
Dying cars over a cemetery of writers and communist actors.

For you – she told me – I have a special premonition.
What? Don’t you want to know?
Come on! Listen to me!
Only I can show you what you could be:
Every falling drop of tear is a rising smile.
You know it’s written in cards.