"turn on the hydrant and the water's hard
you can't wash your face or fill a pail
and the pump has chewed right through its hose
the crowbar's dull and the pick won't bite
because like death water is tough
though you abolish it altogether

all events are reflected in it separately
even toss a piano from the balcony on your neighbor
like a new man he's vulnerable
and the tongue in your mouth is unbearably white
looks as if we'd been drinking a solution of chalk
and now we're eating it like that

a useless sound from the water arose
the air will not pass down the hollow reed
it has choked, thy flute
granite will ring out on the side of the pail
but in frozen time is no harm
to plants stars and beasts

because the limestone brain is hard
because the world is mountain wax
that congeals without difficulty
and in the well's circle more faithfully than you
its features have been reflected forever
by this stone water"

—Thank you, Aleksei Tsvetkov, for "140" in Contemporary Russian Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology, Indiana University Press, 1993, pp.236-239.  Thank you, Barbara Folsom, for access to the library from which this book was borrowed.