^{translated from the Italian by Will Schutt}

I run into them in squares 
or coffee shops, most of the time 
I recognize them, and marvel at 
what they’ve become:
all those eyes and fingers.
Wrenches, suits. Some shy, 
others obnoxious. And the burnouts, 
the ones who lick the dirt.
Then there’s me,
carrying cucumbers and a roll of TP.

Allievi 

Li incontro sulle piazze 
o in qualche bar, li riconosco 
quasi sempre, e penso cosa diventano, 
adesso, tutti quegli occhi, quelle dita.
Carburatori, cravatte. Certi timidi, 
altri perfino odiosi. E i devastati, 
quelli che leccano l’asfalto.
E infine anch’io
che ho in mano cetrioli e carta igienica.

        if you have had 
            your midnights
    and they have drenched
        your barren guts
           with tears

  I sing you sunrise
         and love
and someone to touch

For all we knew, there was no such thing as wealth
management internships sponsored by a father’s
Harvard roommate, or else some Fifth Avenue gig
running iced coffee for fashionistas an hour’s ride away
from where we stood, the darkest thing for miles,

trash collection claws extending from our sleeves
like some late 80’s cyborg fantasy. We were bored
out of our brains, unlettered, sharp enough still
to know our place in the grander proletarian scheme:
a pair of scholarship kids paid to maintain campus

while our peers tried their hands at college physics,
American industry, psychedelics and road trips
to the mid-west with friends, all while Devin and I
stood in our standard-issue jumpsuits, adding another
coat of white paint to the cafeteria walls without irony.

There were no small iron gods in our pockets then;
no machines to thread us into the invisible world, and so
we passed entire mornings listening to the ceremonies
of birds we couldn’t name as we traversed the sides
of the high-way, each step perfecting our soon-to-be

flawless technique, dodging carrion, dividing paper waste
from condoms and bottles of Coors, just the way Jay taught
us our first day on-call. I spent most breaks in the rift
between observation and dreams, pulling music from the filthy
tales each older man on the maintenance crew cast like a cure

into the mind of the other. Folklore filling the desolate
lecture halls where we took lunch, laughing as we traded
one tradition for another. No future worth claiming apart
from that broken boiler in the next building, blackbirds
trapped in the gutter-way, getting pipes fixed before fall.

Here where the trees tremble with your flight
I sit and braid thin whips to beat you down.
How shall we ever find you who have gone
In little dresses, lisping through the town?

Great men on horses hunt you, and strong boys
Employ their arrows in the shallow air.
But I shall be heard whistling where I follow
Braiding long wisps of grass and stallion’s hair.

And in the night when thirty hawks are high
In pendent rhythm, and all the wayside loud;
When they are burning field and bush and hedge,
I’ll steal you like a penny from the crowd.

^{after Margaret F. Browne}

the cure for hysteria     finger on clit                    throat opening

 for wandering womb   hammered into such arterial

gold   afternoon sunlight hot as names in the belly         o gland

             swelling breath            satin stroke        the labial murmur

-ation of birds splintering anxious pupil              into ring

indigo     rain above mountains dilating

                         o hand’s wet circle         both disorder of desire

and treatment for           not wanting anyone else      in these sigh hips

             arched into all that penitent       sky pelvis

hinged up and down     the impossible asexual girl ache     faster

            pulse a honeyed lock                 gasping    vulva    widening

carnivorous covenant     the uterus flush           and again

that alleviates pain        that reminds how to howl o yes    o god killed

and brought back broken      to hum                  like a promise    severed

at the daughter   o femoral   o wrist      o vein pounding with

thirst     if this is first praise         then let every   horizon shudder 

and spit          the cervix          coughing lightning          back to brain

         through the jaws     and thighs sugared     as dirt

o cactus flowers opening       o release       the thunder       into blood

              a new   word                 for tremble      is burial

Promise you wont forget
each time we met
we kept our clothes on
despite obvious intentions
to take them off,
seldom kissed or even slept,
talked to spend desire,
worn exhausted from regret.

Continue our relationship apart
under surveillance, torture, persecuted
confinement’s theft; no must or sudden blows
when embodied spirits mingled
despite fall’s knock
we rode the great divide
of falsehood, hunger and last year

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

When I talk to my friends I pretend I am standing on the wings 

of a flying plane. I cannot be trusted to tell them how I am. 
Or if I am falling to earth weighing less 

than a dozen roses. Sometimes I dream they have broken up 

with their lovers and are carrying food to my house. 
When I open the mailbox I hear their voices 

like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle 

passing through the tall grasses and ferns 
after the train has passed. I never get ahead of their shadows. 

I embrace them in front of moving cars. I keep them away 

from my miseries because to say I am miserable is to say I am like them.