ten mismatches –

over the years the possibility to forget what our house looked like

or the lagoon

or how the water buses skated on water.

At the edge of the lagoon

water buses skated on water, have you forgotten how cold it was

or how insensible to follow how impossible to follow

someone over a frozen surface. The snails – you have eaten them.

You were supposed to care – they were mine.

You had given them to me – they were mine. The house might need some work done –

at the fringes of the lagoon we have planted a tree which bears orange fruit.

The house needs some work done, but the windows are the same

the walls are the same, the floor and the curtains

let alone the kitchen with nothing in it – you and me had nothing in it.

The snail theatre, that was the idea winters ago – then the mismatches, then the snow

then a night in the hospital then a night in the hospital

a night in which wine, a winter have you forgotten which?

Everything was sharper than now, had to be uncovered still

now we have uncovered it – it’s another winter.

It’s another winter morning with a priest carrying a pine tree

across a silent campo, which is like a square

and he stops and leans over the well in the middle

catching his breath that whitely

dissolves –

 

 

after Valerio Mieli’s Dieci Inverni