requiem

It isn’t me, someone else is suffering. I couldn’t.
Not like this. Everything that has happened,
cover it with a black cloth,
then let the torches be removed…
Night. -- Anna Akhmatova, “Requiem” (translated by Sasha Mayakovsky)

On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously