Your girlish shoulders are for blushing,
For blushing under whips, and in dawn’s raw ice to shine.
 
Your child-like hands are for pushing,
For pushing flatirons and feed sacks, and knotting twine.
 
Your feet, infant-tender, are for tiptoeing,
Tiptoeing through shattered glass, in the blood-tracked clay.
 
And I, I am for you, a black candle burning,
Like a black candle I am burning, and dare not pray.
 
(translated from the Russian by Christian Wiman)