Jonah Dillon

"I was washing at night in the courtyard,

Harsh stars shone in the sky.

Starlight, like salt on an axe-head -

The rain-butt was brim-full and frozen.

The gates are locked,

And the earth in all conscience is bleak.

There's scarcely anything more basic and pure

Than truth's clean canvas.

A star melts, like salt, in the barrel

And the freezing water is blacker,

Death cleaner, misfortune saltier,

And the earth more truthful, more awful."

—Osip Mandelstam, 1921