The nations drown, the towers collapse Poem by Milo De Angelis

The nations drown, the towers collapse, a chaos
of languages and colours, traumas and new loves,
enters Bovisasca, wipes out the masterful loneliness
of the twentieth century, of our lines
suspended over the void. Other women wander amid
the scraps left from the market, in the new misery
of this moment. I sit at the downstairs café,
I look at the landscape Sironi made, on a lonely
August twelfth, I start to convene the shadows.

I see my father again in a seaside town, a breeze
of the Belle Epoque and a boy's lost smile.
And then Paoletta who triumphed on the judo mat
three seconds before the end. And Roberta
who devoted her life. And Giovanna,
in a hospital silence, when time
reveals its great paradigms.

"The shadowy loves will return to life again
loves that left a thorn among the years
will return, will return, luminous."