TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY PATRICK WILLIAMSON

 

Curved                       

                                                                         17-20 October

Love is curved space

something when it’s missing.

 

That is why we curl up in bed

each on our side

in a galaxy

looking for its tail.

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Still sleepy

 

Sleep hides in plain sight

in the sunlight

literally

 

My arms were full of it

and you found it

you made a bed of it

 

Sleep fixed a meeting for us between nine

and ten in the morning

perfect time

 

In you, my sleeping 

five-year-old girl

I’d see the form God tends to

 

If I were not asleep as well

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The correction

 

At the five millionth coffee they decided
to take the bull by the horns

hands on their thighs rose in chorus
from the folding chairs arranged in a circle

they ascended from the neon basement
to the frost of the primum mobile left open

and asked the angel on duty for an appointment
directly with the creator. With courteous urgency.

not protected by a waiting room in the dark
breathing warmth into their clenched fists they tried

their little speech again: look at us we are all
here and we are all equally wrong

we can’t love each other do something
and if you really don’t want to make us new again

touch us up, improve us, correct the obvious
error of youth. O almighty you.

And they smiled tremblingly wondering
so not to think of Vladimir and Estragon

behind masks of anxiety silhouetted
in the flickering of a lighter, how

he would finally show up
whether in a traditional light breeze

or a breath of late-Bobdylanian hoarseness
in everyone’s ear in hyperstereo.

They almost didn’t notice when it happened.
Those who did notice it kept quiet

so not to distract those accustomed to despair
when everyone sprouted a third limb

right in the centre of their chest and their head
an obtuse hand, neither right nor left.

And they continued to melt in chatter
more delicate than dew. It was easier

to accept grace this way, correction
without stopping to wait for another,

the right one at last, the final tweak
that would not let them down. The grass was grey,

the night butts on the ground,
the dawn doomed to come.

 

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Also, read Love in the Time of Typhoid or the Sprite that Loved the Fisherman, written by K. Rekha, translated from the Malayalam by K.M. Ajir Kutty and published in The Antonym.

:: Love in the Time of Typhoid or the Sprite that Loved the Fisherman — K. Rekha

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