Edge of Town, A Dream

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Translated from Russian by Alex Cigale

And so, he declared, the Arno, plague of mirrors, another –
river of suicides. You almost hallucinate. The air
and we in it, wedged in the beeswax of the clay-built corners. The streets’
recesses hemorrhage with summer light. So many
hidden compartments in the midday spasm – as though
Numidian arrows whirl into the window’s swelling. Now
suffocation is partitioned into stony scraps
beyond the door, the cat’s gaze,
the calloused walls and a Florentine film
covered with heliophobic stains. Across
the room a ray measures a bilious
weave under the feet and exasperates
with a capricious character the clenched lips
or sows in them a light delirium:
Italiam, Italiam! and the hypnosis melts. The southern
gloaming droops into our eyes’ orbits, into the crust
of the baked lava; we are here. Men and the landscape disperse
in the distance, like ashes.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015