He Is Still Alone (The Second Marriage) by Natalia Zaretsky

                              “He’s floating inside his life like Jonah in his dark fish.” [Yehuda Amichai]
                              To my ex-husband


On the outskirts of Moscow a stooped figure
plods from the bus stop inside his thoughts.

He has never hurried – from his late virginity
to a wobbly married life, full of stirs and upsets.

He was tired of her verve and his own jealousy.
Often, alone, in the evening he stares out

the window at the strip between tedious buildings,
he thinks of breaking the cycle of indecision.

O, he doesn’t have to – she, herself,
left his life, his world, the country.

He finds someone different and soft like a fluffy cat,
maybe a little too dreamy, a little too slow.

Years pass.
In the mirror he sees two figures behind him.

Which is better – turmoil of the first marriage
or the dull snailing of the second one?

Again he is alone, lost amidst his uncertainty
between his science and a carload of dreams.

Now he cannot decide whether it is time or not
to flatten his back against the armchair of retirement.

The sound of his rattling keys shakes off
disquieting thoughts of his life passing by.