Babel
Babel
Ironic considering your name that
you were charged with silence
“the sin of Soviet unproductivity”
the punishment for which
is everlasting silence
they broke your glasses
as if out of mercy
so you wouldn’t have to watch them
burn your manuscripts in the fireplace
but in truth they broke your glasses
because they were a sign of your class
helpless you pleaded
“Let me finish my work”
thinking this might appeal to them
the fact that you were nothing
more than a worker
as if a writer at his desk is no different
from the man laying cobblestones in the street
as if you can’t pick up a word
like a brick and hurl it at the state
you said it yourself when you said
no iron spike can pierce
a human heart as icily as
a period in the right place.