Rain, and a poet lying dead In an unknown grave.

The telegram to his brother said Heart failure, on the slow frozen Cattle train out of Buytrki.

This pain, these many years later Should suffice for blood of kinship.

No steppe here with its furrowed Black earth, a groomed horse's mane As he called it. No orioles either with Their poetic measure for his lines.

Just a man in a city that is a labyrinth Of laughter from cafes (why are they laughing?), And ambulance sirens (what kept these away so long?),

Listening to the plop of rain on a black umbrella, A sky beneath a sky, writing this crude kaddish Leaning against a ghoulish streetlight.

Osip refers to Osip Mandelstam, a beautiful Russian poet.