in my other life as a horse
I worked like a horse, during a funeral
in the early middle ages in the Prussian
contests I was driven exhausted, still alive, into a hole
pushed on my knees face down, my front legs
bent, pressed up against my breastbone, crack
went the first and second vertebrae in my neck, eyes
turned to the setting sun, toward overseas fisheaters, rump
lifted high
in my other life as a horse
I sweated in a German mine in Bohemia
in rathole darkness, went blind
one night, standing under
the new moon, they led me to stable, then later slowly
at night, as the moon fattened to full, my blinders
went wider and wider, they seasoned me
in my other life as a horse
having brought Mickevičius from Naugardukas to Wilno
I wandered the city's streets
on wooden sandals
to die - everyone to that beloved land, to Vilnius
now I am an apparition in Belmont
it happens too that I'm frightened
by thieves and cars in Sereikiškės
on my neck dragging a policeman
the color of distant woods

in my other life as a bird I worked as a nightingale
in a town of hills and valleys near the Danube, framed
by forests, groves, in fields in Lithuania
I wakened the hayreapers
in my other life as a bird
all just barely dark night long from May to June
I went mad, all slavic night long
I went to race with evening's
and later with morning's birds, shutting
them all off, the rabid cuckoo
of morning still surprised the naked poet
Europennies in his pocket, the pocket in the other room
love remains, death and recruits
you will cuckoo yourself

in my other life as a poet
I noticed that all French girls, if we travel
lay down or fly - put me to sleep, just alongside
so we would not have to talk
with words or hands, or hot
finger pillows or edges
of lips, I dream in a closed space

Translated by Jonas Zdanys