Marina Tsvetaeva : An Attempt at Jealousy

Seated Woman : Pablo Picasso (1960)

AN ATTEMPT AT JEALOUSY

How is your life with that other one?

Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars

and a long coastline—

and the memory of me

is soon a drifting island

(not in the ocean—in the sky!)

Souls—you will be sisters—

sisters, not lovers.

How is your life with an ordinary

woman? without the god inside her?

The queen supplanted—

How do you breathe now?

Flinch, waking up?

What do you do, poor man?

“Hysterics and interruptions—

enough! I’ll rent my own house!”

How is your life with that other,

you, my own.

Is the breakfast delicious?

(If you get sick, don’t blame me!)

How is it, living with a postcard?

You who stood on Sinai.

How’s your life with a tourist

on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)

is it to your liking?

How’s life? Do you cough?

Do you hum to drown out the mice in your mind?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?

How’s kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?

How’s it going, with an earthly woman, 

with no sixth sense?

                                                         Are you happy?

No? In a shallow pit—how is your life,

my beloved? Hard as mine

with another man?

~ Marina Tsvetaeva

(1924)

(Translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky & Jean Valentine)

 Marina Tsvetaeva

 Marina

Marina Tsvetaeva

 Portrait of Marina Tsvetaeva : By Magda Nachman-Acharya (1913)