8 Years Before the War — Web Exclusive
By Fyodor Svarovsky
Translated by Peter Golub
It was noon
By the time we'd climbed the mountain
There was nearly no water left
And no one at the summit
Our feet ached
Only the grass moving
And the smell of dry weeds
I asked you to take a picture of me standing in those weeds
I was wearing shorts
Naked from the waist up
And suddenly
A grasshopper jumped onto my stomach
You were 19 then
And I 122
The war between people and robots
Hadn't yet begun
There was still 8 years
Till the beginning of the monstrous war
Fyodor Svarovsky is a Moscow author who writes sci-fi and epic poetry. He has published three books, none of which have been fully translated. English translations of his poems can be found at Diagram and Jacket 2. His site is Roboteka. He has been nominated for the Andrei Bely Prize.
Peter Golub has been published in Circumference, PEN America, and Playboy. He co-translated Andrei Sen-Senkov's Anatomical Theater (Zephyr Press, 2012). He is the recipient of a PEN Translation Grant as well as a BILTC Fellowship. He is studying at UC Berkeley and coedits the St. Petersburg Review.
Fyodor Svarovsky. Everyone Wants to Be a Robot. Moscow: Argo-Risk, 2007