[It's a blessing to be as far away as you are] Poem by Antonella Anedda

It's a blessing to be as far away as you are
the most innocent among distant things:
table-niche and apple
a sphere, a level surface and against the fire's tall flame
the two forms joined to extract the brightness of a room.


Nothing in the real world calls us
yet we draw close to objects
almost as if they were the echoes of a voice
a frail annunciation of other lives.
Black water, the dog's shape against the pier
No one can call them memories and truly whistle as they did then
but we see the three rooms, the sudden movement
of one who was still alive
and abruptly the wardrobes send us back
a wandering fire the uncertain star of a face.


Nothing is accomplished nothing is still deep.
There's only the thud of a sudden kick
and these cries among bill hooks which rip the spines
- cries we can't comprehend as happens to those pursued in the dark

Trees, bodies, gusts against the walls.
One gesture's enough: the reversal of an elbow which puts out a candle.

At a stroke we've become what he'd most feared.

Translated by Jamie McKendrick