市民，敵人，慫蛋包 ，蠢貨，絕對的

垃圾，叫花子，下流豬，避難猶太，討厭鬼；

一張被滾開水反復燙傷的頭皮

使疲弱的頭腦有被完全煮熟的況味。

是的，我們住在這裏：在這混凝土，磚頭，木製

的碎料堆，你現在前來篩尋。

我們所有的鐵絲都交叉，倒鉤，糾纏，鉤織。

還有：我們沒愛過我們的女人，但她們懷了孕。

尖銳便是鎬鋤痛擊死鐵的聲音；

但它，還是要比我們聽過或說過的溫柔。

陌生人！穿過我們的腐肉可得謹慎：

你看來是腐肉的對我們細胞卻是自由。

別干涉我們的名字。別重建那些元音字母，

或是輔音，諸如此類：他們不會像是畫眉

而只是一條瘋掉的獵犬，它如狼似虎

吞沒自己的蹤跡，糞便，繼而狂吠，狂吠。

1983

Joseph Brodsky·Letter to an Archaeologist


Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter
garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.
Yes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden
rubble which you now arrive to sift.
All our wires were crossed, barbed, tangled, or interwoven.
Also: we didn't love our women, but they conceived.
Sharp is the sound of pickax that hurts dead iron;
still, it's gentler than what we've been told or have said ourselves.
Stranger! move carefully through our carrion:
what seems carrion to you is freedom to our cells.
Leave our names alone. Don't reconstruct those vowels,
consonants, and so forth: they won't resemble larks
but a demented bloodhound whose maw devours
its own traces, feces, and barks, and barks.