The Clear Sarcophagus of Reality by Dmitry Blizniuk

Violet ladies of night dreams stroll around the rooms.
They smell the walls and the wet clothes hanging on a line,
lap with violet, Chow-chow's tongues
the remains of cold tea in big cups.
Night. I like this melodious submersion into slumber:
you climb the dark-violet mountains
reflected in a different reality as if in a calm lake.
It's a gradual ascent, but downwards,
and your consciousness -
like a quick, translucent snake -
slides off your neck
and crawls away 
and goes about its own, snake's business. It's night.
But during the day, I feel time
like a raw chicken in a supermarket
feels the three layers of stretch wrap
it is packaged in –
the clear sarcophagus of reality…

                              (translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)

Dmitry Blizniuk is a poet from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in Rattle, The Nation, The London Magazine, Guernica, Pleiades, Another Chicago Magazine and many others.. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). His poems have been awarded RHINO 2022  Translation Prize. He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. Dmitry Blizniuk in the Poets & Writers Directory. http://www.pw.org/directory/writers/dmitry_blizniuk