Quando un pensiero ci porta via, a niente serve la nostalgia. Non fermarti

davanti quell'apparire, vai oltre, tu sei oltre il tutto.

Ho molto da leggere,
ma non libri
ma occhi,
i tuoi occhi!
Sono una splendida mappa,
capaci di condurmi nel
paradiso della tua anima.
In questa pergamena
d'amore io vorrò perdermi!

Chea paròea
E cussì, cussìta, fra noàntri
dò te'à tocà pròpio de dirla
par primo a tì chea paròea
chea paròea che senpre fa paura,
che ne paréa de'vértea sconta
par ben, pa'l tò ben. Senpi sol
a pensar che bastésse nò dirla
drento casa pà podhér seràrla
davero fòra, fòra da tì par sempre
magari, pà tègnerte tel bonbàso
el pì possìbie, drento a'na bèa
bòzha de amór infrangìbie; che
fin'dèss, cò te'ò portà cò mì
a mandarghe un basét co'a manina
a chel nòno che varda in banda,
tramèdho i fiori tel vaso, a i cancèi
del zhimitèro, sempre te'ò dita
dai che andiamo a salutare il nonno
Toni che fa la nanna. E cussì, cussìta,
te'sta sera de afa nanna la fa anca
'sta zhiìga schinzhàdha, co'e àe vèrte,
tel'sfalto macià de ojàzh del parchéio
'ndo fa la nanna vera anca'a mè Fiat
e cussì, cussìta, te'à tocà de dirla
par primo a tì chea paròea maédheta
mì a dirte su'e sòite senpiàdhe del cel
che se'à sbregà, e prima'ncora che
scuminzhiésse a pudhàr'a lengua
tii denti'a prima volta dée dò
tì, cò tuta'a naturàezha dei tò
dò àni, te me'a'à dita cussì,
cussìta, come che te sì bon, senza
'a ère in mèdho, senza nianca punto
de domanda tacà tea coda. Cussì, cussìta
che pà un momento'ò vussù crédher
che te'o'vesse scanbià, che te fusse
drio mostràrme'na moto, un modheìn
dei tui tut a tòchi, co'l dedhìn intrincà
verso chel pòro grumét de péne
là, par tèra, tel parché del parchéio.

E così, così, fra noi
due è toccato pronunciarla per primo
proprio a te quella parola
quella parola che sempre angoscia,
che ci sembrava di avertela celata
per bene, per il tuo bene. Sciocchi noi solo
a pensare che bastasse non pronunciarla
fra le mura di casa per poter chiuderla
davvero fuori, fuori da te, per sempre
magari, per continuare ad adagiarti nel cotone
il più a lungo possibile, dentro una bella
bolla di amore infrangibile; che
sinora, quando ti portavo con me
a soffiare un bacio con la manina
a quel nonno che guarda sempre di lato,
fra i vasi di fiori, ai cancelli
del cimitero, sempre ti ho detto
dai che andiamo a salutare il nonno
Antonio che fa la nanna. E così, così,
in questa sera afosa fa la nanna anche
questo passero spiaccicato, ad ali aperte,
nell'asfalto chiazzato di oliaccio del parcheggio
ove fa la nanna vera anche la mia auto
e così, così
è toccato pronunciarla per primo
a te quella parola maledetta
io a raccontarti le solite baggianate del cielo
che si è squarciato, e prima ancora che
iniziassi ad appoggiare la lingua
nei denti la prima della duplice volta
tu, con tutta la naturalezza dei tuoi
due anni, me l'hai detta così,
così come ne sei capace, priva
di erre in centro, senza neanche il ricciolo di un punto
di domanda sulla coda. Così, così
che per un istante ho voluto pensare
che l'avessi scambiato, che stessi
indicandomi una moto, un modellino dei tuoi
tutto a pezzi, col tuo ditino teso
verso quel povero mucchietto di piume
lì, in terra, nel perché del parcheggio.
Fabio Franzin

The Double Image
I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
Falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I'd never get you back again.
I tell you what you'll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.

I, who chose two times
to kill myself, had said your nickname
the mewling mouths when you first came;
until a fever rattled
in your throat and I moved like a pantomine
above your head. Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame,
I heard them say, was mine. They tattled
like green witches in my head, letting doom
leak like a broken faucet;
as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet,
an old debt I must assume.

Death was simpler than I'd thought.
The day life made you well and whole
I let the witches take away my guilty soul.
I pretended I was dead
until the white men pumped the poison out,
putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole
of talking boxes and the electric bed.
I laughed to see the private iron in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
go queer. You ask me where they go I say today believed
in itself, or else it fell.

Today, my small child, Joyce,
love your self's self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow's white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.
The time I did not love
myself, I visited your shoveled walks; you held my glove.
There was new snow after this.


They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn't leave. I had my portrait
done instead.

Part way back from Bedlam
I came to my mother's house in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. And this is how I came
to catch at her; and this is how I lost her.
I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.
And she never could. She had my portrait
done instead.

I lived like an angry guest,
like a partly mended thing, an outgrown child.
I remember my mother did her best.
She took me to Boston and had my hair restyled.
Your smile is like your mother's, the artist said.
I didn't seem to care. I had my portrait
done instead.

There was a church where I grew up
with its white cupboards where they locked us up,
row by row, like puritans or shipmates
singing together. My father passed the plate.
Too late to be forgiven now, the witches said.
I wasn't exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.


All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.

They hung my portrait in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn't answer.


That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells'arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.

During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.

I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
nothing sweet to spare
with witches at my side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.


I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts's okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.

All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cocktails as a wife
should, made love among my petticoats

and August tan. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid

stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.

That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.

We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the sea,
and two portraits hung on the opposite walls.


In north light, my smile is held in place,
the shadow marks my bone.
What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,
all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone
of the smile, the young face,
the foxes'snare.

In south light, her smile is held in place,
her cheeks wilting like a dry
orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown
love, my first image. She eyes me from that face
that stony head of death
I had outgrown.

The artist caught us at the turning;
we smiled in our canvas home
before we chose our foreknown separate ways.
The dry redfur fox coat was made for burning.
I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.

And this was the cave of the mirror,
that double woman who stares
at herself, as if she were petrified
in time -- two ladies sitting in umber chairs.
You kissed your grandmother
and she cried.


I could not get you back
except for weekends. You came
each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn't the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.

I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.
You came like an awkward guest
that first time, all wrapped and moist
and strange at my heavy breast.
I needed you. I didn't want a boy,
only a girl, a small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself. We named you Joy.
I, who was never quite sure
about being a girl, needed another
life, another image to remind me.
And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure
or soothe it. I made you to find me.
Anne Sexton