PASSAGE FROM THE EAST Poem by Gian Mario Villalta

Steel, thuds, fragments
water that cackles in the tubes
and deeper down the breath
redesigns the quadrant
behind the fittings that crowd
the room of the eyes and the sky
if it touches the earth
and the black line
that lacerates the voice on the door-step.

The iron of obtuse months - the crew
gossiping on the scaffolding -
of thirst that sucks the pulp
from the fruit of bitterness
always in furious haste and again
tolla, I-beams, cement,
the loudspeaker, the light
of the questions while half-asleep,
another unnerved
to-and-fro on the scaffolding, until, not expected
again the sky of the puppies
those eyes to open the day
up to the hardened sods of the dark.

November sweet butcher
has a purple nipple, covers the mother
with the checkered tarpaulin