AN ITALIAN EVENING Poem by Davide Rondoni

The chequered tablecloth in the white
light.
And in the evening.
It would be enough to see
it is evening,
see it at all the tables
of the building
half littered from dinner
or empty with only the remote control
reflected in the blank screen.

It would be enough for the fists clenched without a glass
to open -
suddenly
they would turn over to beg
beating on the table
and on the flat bone of loneliness.

One would see
many men,
many men with their heads bent, thick
tongues,
silent before the screen, in the white light,
of the evening.
Her goat muzzle, spring would
put it in those hands to graze,
confident.