Half an hour before the assault, Soon again, under the tanks, Again listening to the concert of explosions, But to the young fighter They passed on from home A small, sky blue, triangle of an envelope And as though you were not here, When the writing of a bride Or they wrote, your father and mother... But something else happened It seems, they shouldn’t have hurried To hand the soldier the letter before the battle At the beginning it read: "Please excuse me my silence I won’t wait." And that was all. Only below, a postscript: "I’m leaving for far away, You fight calmly, and forgive me, if I’ve offended." With the first fracture The lad cried in sorrow: "Mailman, what the hell did you bring! A second before death In a triangular envelope I received a bullet wound." He stepped from the trench With the gun on his neck He did not watch out for fragments And in the battle for Suroi He hugged the earth, Only the wind scattered the ripped pieces of the letter.
© Anton L.. Translation, 2016