Xenia Emelyanova is a Russian poet who published some of her first poems in 2014 in the journal Yunost, for which she won the journal’s Anna Akhmatova Prize. Her poems were longlisted for the PEN/International New Voices Award in 2014 as well. In 2015 she won the Russian Rhymes award. The poem presented here appears in Emelyanova’s first full-length collection, Lepet (2016). Emelyanova’s work has appeared in English translation in Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art, Waxwing, and From the Fishouse and was featured online during National Translation Month 2017. Emelyanova, a graduate of the Gorky Literary Institute, lives in Moscow.