Erminia Passannanti
(To Romano Luperini)
AT NIGHT
If it had been
yours alone
what unhappy animal
would have made incursions
into your dreams
disturbed your days
sinking its fangs in the nape of your neck
the anxious restless beech-marten
the wild cat
the greedy wolf?
If on your cheek
and on your exposed chest
- blue and tearful
like the body of Christ
it had left my bite
if before evening
and before nightfall
with gasping breath
- the humble eavesdropper
at my door
would have informed you
with no possibility of error
of my true nature
(that open wound)
which - except for you -
neither man nor beast
would have asked to go
disarmed to listen...?
Oxford, 20.04.2002
|