Words from Confinement

We would go down to the fish market early

to cleanse our vision: the fish were silver,

and scarlet, and green, and the color of sea.

The fish were lovelier than even the sea

with its silvery scales. We thought of return.

Lovely too the women with jars on their heads,

olive-brown clay, shaped softly like thighs:

we each thought of our women, their voices,

their laughs, the way they walked down the street.

And each of us laughed. And it rained on the sea.

In vineyards that cling to cracks in the earth,

water softens the leaves and the grape-stems. The sky

is colored by occasional clouds that redden

with pleasure and sun. On earth, flavors and smells;

in the sky, color. And we were alone there.

We thought of return the way a man thinks

of morning after an utterly sleepless night.

We took pleasure in the color of fish and the glisten

of fruit, all so alive in the musk of the sea.

We were drunk on the thought of impending return.

Copyright Credit: Cesare Pavese, "Words from Confinement" translated by Geoffrey Brock, from Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950. Copyright © 2002 by Geoffrey Brock. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press. www.coppercanyonpress.org

Source: Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950 (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)