The voice does not connect, does not
reach all the way between us
like a phon in water
instead it stops like a
...
Through the path
of the needle, with
your thread
that is already passing
...
When you discover those long cuts,
sheets of paper or blade of grass,
you barely touch
...
Why
do you want to slip me
through the trees -
so that eyebrows
tangle,
legs
splinter,
to mirror yourself
in my skin -
soap, that washes
away cracks,
angles and hours of yours,
to suck the water
of light from my
eye.
...
You show me your wounds, as a soldier,
your battle
with another you who's consuming you
...
(Spit out by the forest
fearless, her body
round: an egg without
cracks, with a compass
for a navel.)
...
I translate your life
with feng shui, receipes,
I glue back your vocal cords
I tune the voice you had,
...
In the velvet shell
she carries the butter,
mama's shaken juice,
the bread, her skin,
...
Mended nerves
among fog, paperwork, jackets
twisted fingers
(veins and arteries intersected)
...
Elisa Biagini, born in Florence in 1970, earned her PhD at Rutgers University and taught Italian at Rutgers, Columbia University and New York University. Her poetry has appeared in numerous Italian and American journals, such as Poesia , Linea d'ombra and Lungfull . She has six collections of poetry in Italian, of which the most recent is Nell'osso/Into the Bone (Damocle, 2012). Her poetry has been translated into a dozen languages, and she has translated American poets into Italian for the anthology Nuovi Poeti Americani (Einaudi, 2006). Elisa Biagini lives in Florence and teaches creative writing, literature and art history in Italy and abroad. She collaborates with musicians, artists and choreographers, and participates in poetry workshops and festivals in Europe and places as far away as Hong Kong)
The darkness dries up
The darkness dries up
the drops of your
breath:
all
the round, fullness of the
world is here
in the bed, that
plateful of
evaporated words.
Translation: 2006, Elisa Biagini