Erminia Passannanti
“Out of a squared chamber”
i
coming out of a squared chamber
of okras and browns I fly over
the cars stuck in the traffic cupping
between my hands a bowl of rice
as though I had
just splashed into the quivering blue
of an oceanic shoal
for the sole sake of my spirit
my face is neatly traced by a fine net
of dotted lines encircling my mouth
my eyes my nostrils as if someone
were to modify the all lot:
never mind I always disliked my kind
ii
her pronoun is fixed in Capital I
so she can think what she thinks when she wants
towering over the town as a hideous giant
presenting to the crowd the cavity of her stomach
imagine now her body spattered over the pedestrian area
after the fall the nose crumbled the face disfigured
the limbs tore apart turned chalky white
the arms twisted and displaced
her creamy stocking all tattered
showing through the big elliptic holes
her cracked knees and thighs
iii
we are told she was a nurse
who had joined the Communist Party
and whose name is still ignored
the profile left to us
is that of a woman who had spent the last fifteen minutes
of her life with her eyes fixed on a bowl of rise
against the soundless background of an oceanic shoal.
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