« 6 p.m. Curling his upper lip, Spermatozaurus Rex invades her driveway. Music, he says, dear Helga, is just the tip of a Steinway. Look, he cries, at these palm trees swaying like them Chinese characters, bent to destroy the message. Your kid is collecting stamps, Helga!, and underneath the album there is the Rites of Passage! Come closer, my little Oedipus, us sphinxes we dig no vibes. Now he quotes...
... Torricelli and waxes lyrical: Helga, love is like water in unconnected pipes seeking a faucet. Isn’t that a miracle? I fought through the whole Pleistocene just to hit this swamp! The rank was Gruppensexführer, a medal for every cushion. I am so charged, he cries, I can stick my thumb into my ass and suffer electrocution. Nobody ever caught geology in the act! Once, he brags, I knew History; it had brittle tendons. The Monument to its Victims should stand not in front of the jail but at the maternity ward’s main entrance. Some still go for the jugular, Helga, but hit the bow tie. Likewise every carpet bombing is followed by cries, “Excuse us!” There is only one way to be born, but so many ways to die. Stars look like beggars turned lucky choosers. » Бродский, 1992
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