random restaurant bullshit

The drunken Russians
at the next table
are out on a date.

They're old and they're ugly.
They roll all their Rs and
they don't speak the crooked

ratatouille of the Jewish.
The man, he proclaims then to no one
partic'lar: «Я иммигрант русский!»¹


She covers her mouth then
and shouts at her neighbours:
«Ты, видишь, в шестом,

а я в четвёртом...² ...чё, я вообще там
про них забыла».³

«Я вся вон такая
с корабля там вышла».⁴
Her husband retorts then:


«...или они тебя по голове
ударили?⁵ ...да, спасибо,
хорошую идею дала.»⁶

«...вместо до́ма престарелых.»⁷
In turn someone thought then: "I love
this photo. In frame I will put it."

Angry young Russian drinks down his bourbon.
He too is ugly; he too is burdened.
By all the random restaurant bullshit.



¹ "I—immigrant Russian!"

² "You see, you're in sixth, / and I in fourth one..."

³ "...wha', I have tot'lly / of them forgotten."

⁴ "I'm really like all that / off the boat went down there."

⁵ "...or have they then hit you hard on the head / with so much force?"

⁶ "Why, yes, thank you / a grand idea you've given me."

⁷ "...in place of the home of elders."