SUCH PEOPLE ARE CALLED NAKED

For Henri Michaux

you took off your t-shirt

I pulled off my dress

you unbuckled your belt

I unhooked my bra

you dropped your pants and kicked off your socks

I freed myself from my panties, so sassy

it’s better to call them sassies

and now we lie in bed

two strips

like two white loaves of bread

facing each other

you touch my cheek with your hand

you lower your hand on my neck

you drive your fingers along my upper back:

“how nicely everything is put together here!” you utter

but suddenly

from behind your shoulder your mom peeks and says,

“Andryusha, did you wash your hands?”

you turn to face her, show her your hands

she offers you fruit compote and goes to the kitchen

you turn back to me

put your hand back where you previously stopped

from my back it slides down to my breasts

softly as sea sand

and then I feel my dad’s breath on my neck:

“think with your head, baby”

he whispers loudly

I turn away from you

and see his unshaved face quite close

and reply that I always think with my head!

I turn to you

and already my hand slides along your chest

and its thin hair bends under it

and then

behind your back the bed creaks:

“Andryusha, have some fruit compote”

you turn away from me

kiss her sonorously and say:

“mom, I want to be alone for a bit!”

and she replies, offended:

“it doesn’t look like you’re alone!”

and she goes somewhere again

and now you are with me again

and your hand on my belly

glides down slowly

so it gets so close and so tender

so it gets so

and then

I hear my grandmother’s groaning

she says loudly into my back:

“you’re not a virgin anymore

see how your expression changed!”

and I take your hand away from my belly

turn halfway to my granny

with the same hand of yours

I straighten her purple kerchief

and say loudly:

“I’m still pure, gran,

and will remain pure forever!”

I turn back to you

and here, over your shoulder

an old lady in a yellow kerchief peeps

this time, your granny:

“what kind of female name ends with a consonant

as if it were a man’s?” she asks

mine does, but I’m silent

and I take your hands off my hips

snow falls between us

and like two toy soldiers

we lie like this till morning

when a cleaning lady comes

throws away the snow mounds between us

and I look into your green eyes for a long, long time

and you keep looking at my nipples

then I say:

“let’s get undressed”

and I take off, one by one:

my dad

my granny

my mom

my sister

and you take off, one by one:

your mom

your brother

your granny

your childhood friend

your pick-up experts

and we now wear nothing at all

such people are called naked

Translated by Svetlana Lavochkina