Staying

My eyes turned to salt in looking back,

my thoughts stood still in gestures,

in the silence of what’s been done;

I gathered the crumbs of another lunch

and shook them into the garden’s vitreous air

where the sun’s just cracked and spilled.

Here, even a flutter of blackbird beyond the hedge

stands still, as my words stand still, like ships in bottles.

Your language is mine but mine is not yours.

At home, I could feel myself thinking

while the television glowed in shadow

and a film score spread like smoke in a saloon.

I keep to myself what it means to tend a fire,

the thick scent of soaked wood, a match between my fingers,

the way a day resides in what’s to do, in another light

split by the clouds, a different sunset tied to the tallest trees

flush in the eyes of houses, on the poor man’s livestock;

a touch here, a touch there — the way loneliness comes,

today, a day like this, one day more alone.

Translated from the Italian