THIS IS SANZIANA

***

Brief fervour wherein I recognize myself

surviving everywhere, everywhere you set

fire to my already leprous eye; not on all

the surface of the earth, not anywhere

but only where you find me again today

where my heart chose you very delicate

love who open like a valley with a shiver

of coolness with drops and allusive light

with poor mirrors in the soul. This is Sanziana

the one with the eyes of a dark blue kept

tightly closed and with the ferocious mouth

remembering fragments of her past

with details forgotten or put in their place

in wrong order “TAIL” amid “THE TRIANGLE”

on dusty and badly illuminated shelves,

this is she. She was speaking about art,

about love, about the difference between

the dream and the wakefulness. She knew

nothing nonetheless she would swoop on you

as would a blue serpent with a yellow flat head  

if you asked her: why everywhere the fraud

this financial speculation, this turpitude

exhibitionism on all beds everywhere the weakness,

the treason, the mess. Out of her mouth breaks

a sentence like a chain, “The song has died in you

and no god lives here, everywhere you hear

the shout from the belly, “Good hiccup

to the relatives!” This turpitude that wants

to tranquillize us, “All’s well!” I stay for ever

and in vain, in vain do I speak today. My only

food?” Sanziana looks askance at me

amid the campanulas.