No, I don’t know from Job

And the rest.

I, too, am living,

I, too, am Job.

I didn’t rise like Lazarus,

And God’s no father to me.

Unlike him, I didn’t crawl out of my grave,

I’m a dead man to this day.

October 17, 1942.
On foot from “Gorny Gigant” to Alma-Ata.

Translated by Charles Swank and Matvei Yankelevich.
© and courtesy of Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016.