4.07.2006

so much to do

The word dropped like a stone
on my still living breast.
Confess: I was prepared,
am somehow ready for the test.

So much to do today:
kill memory, kill pain,
turn heart into a stone,
and yet prepare to live again.

Not quite. Hot summer’s feast
brings rumors of carouse.
How long have I foreseen
this brilliant day, this empty house?

[Anna Akhmatova, "The Sentence" in Poems of Akhmatova]

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