From the liquid
stone of my sadness,
I want to build
a mausoleum.

Where my body would rest.

*

I left this world.
I’m leaving, don’t caress me,
Don’t take me in your arms.

Don’t hack
Into your beard
Like a thief.

Thank you...I want to go myself.
I don’t need a coffin!
Burn me. It’s all the same to me.
Now, it is fire I crave.

Translated from the Uzbek by Hamid Ismailov and Jean-Pierre Balpe via the French by Annie Walker.