A poem by Chandra Livia Candiani, translated from the Italian by Roy Duffield and Elisabetta Taboga
Not an experiment with death,
but a long recurring
wound, the hard leather of childhood,
the coins slipped from the mouth:
“She doesn’t want to be understood.”
But rested and wrapped up
in the blanket, protected,
tired of measurements not defined,
signs always shifted elsewhere,
stop no trespassing, what
is she looking at, the mum turned
away, what
is it singing, the branch without bird,
the rain that strips
the birch, don’t they suggest
the ambush of the words
that don’t end up in the air,
but hung out on the line
dry in order to better
hit the flight
of the living?