I’VE NOTICED HOW MY FACE

INGA KUZNETSOVA

I’ve noticed how my face
Pleases you more than my poems.
Pale and transparent,
They are one and the same;
Even without words you see the frame of my brain
Unobscured by my cranial box,
My skull like a pane;
You even see the nerves wiring my face,
Their signals firing;
Beauty’s no more than an optical trace
That changes nothing;
There’s nothing we can do with beauty
(Take it by force, and so on);
Nothing we can make from poems
And yet we carry on.

я заметила моё лицо
нравится тебе больше текстов
бледное и прозрачное
это одно и то же
ты и без текстов видишь устройство мозга напрямую
сквозь черепную коробку
видишь и проводки лицевых нервов бегущий сигнал
красота же оптический эффект
она ни в чём
с ней ничего невозможно сделать
(взять её и т. п.)
и с поэзией ничего невозможно сделать
а мы зачем-то

Inga Kuznetsova was born in 1974 near Krasnodar, and now lives in Moscow. She has worked as an editor and published several collections of poetry and three novels. Critics have hailed Kuznetsova as the leading poet of her generation. 

Muireann Maguire lectures in Russian at the University of Exeter, UK. She is currently translating a novella by Georgii Shengeli.