Beauty is frightening," they will tell you — Lazily you will arrange A Spanish shawl on your shoulders, A red rose in your hair. "Beauty is simple," they will tell you — Clumsily with a motley shawl You will cover a child up, A red rose on the floor. But, distractedly heeding All the words sounding around you, Sadly lost in thought You will say about yourself: 'I am neither frightening nor simple; I am not so frightening, that I would simply Kill; I am not so simple That I do not know how frightening life is.' ("For Anna Akhmatova")