I found a lengthy word with a non-Russian ending,
unwittingly, inside a children’s storybook,
and turned away from it with a strange kind of shudder.

That word contained the writhing of mysterious passions:
The growls, the howls, the whistles and the senseless visions,
assassinated horses’ vitreous eyes,

the sinuous streets, the evil-auguring constructions,
a man, incarnadine, prostrate upon his back,
the bestial motions of somebody’s avid hands!

And, once upon a time, how sweet I used to find it
to read of funny rabbits who would dance in spring
with guinea pigs on stumps beneath the moon.