Wounds

Translated by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin

To D.G.

I have been wounded so often and so painfully,

dragging my way home at the merest crawl,

impaled not only by malicious tongues—

one can be wounded even by a petal.

And I myself have wounded—quite unwittingly—

with casual tenderness while passing by,

and later someone felt the pain,

it was like walking barefoot over the ice.

So why do I step upon the ruins

of those most near and dear to me,

I, who can be so simply and so sharply wounded

and can wound others with such deadly ease?

—

From The Collected Poems: 1952-1990 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, published by Henry Holt and Company, 1991.