Misha Troyanov

Above the Jewish street, a grey cloud hovers,
spread like a dead horse across the sky.
Friday is a day of hurry and yelling –
Above the Jewish street, a grey cloud hovers,
grey due to the sorrow
that arises from the stinking gutters.
A Jew with hungry eyes,
his shoulders atremble at a shadowy gate,
shouts and gesticulates:
For sale! For sale — warm socks!
And lads stand over baskets of rotten apples,
women with bowed legs
run around with garlic, with onions,
their hands beseeching
for the sake of a penny.
From the butcher shops wafts the stench
of entrails and spleens.
A black funeral heads to the cemetery
with clamor and screams.
A Jew with swollen, decrepit boots
splashes in the mud
and huffs and schleps a heap of slaughtered fowl
with twisted-together necks.
Blind beggars stand near the gates,
bang their canes and awaken
the hard pavement.