(Dear Randolph, I'd love to submit this poem for Nio Project 6. It has
been amended of the mispells - I hope...So, if you decide to take it, use
this version, Thank you, Erminia)
Erminia Passannanti
‘ Frauds ’
I think you believe
that once back
I will be happier
freer.
Happier.
About what? And freer.
Where?
In a place
which imposes on me its frauds:
to be sister to my brother
neighbour to my
doubles.
I bite this crisp apple
swollen with the air which makes it ripe.
Fragrant rotundity, spring of resonances.
Or else longing.
See me seized by the difficulty
which destroys all remedies.
Confined to a patterned room
because of my malady: the denial of
craving.
And cravings denying me.
The meandering line
of bare foot-prints
which cannot be straightened,
an eye left in solitude, wandering,
labouring men’s enmities .
Since only among them
I am believed
to exist and resist
in a multitude of narratives.
Like the unknown child
who sits next to me:
Where are you from? I ask.
And she replies:
from Italy.
18. 2. 2002
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