Whims of Water, by Lucio Mariani

Neither a star nor a demon or shrike

asked me to exist. And yet this whim

of water speaks to you and smiles still, one

of countless thousands, a chance of form,

a crag cut by the course of time,

blood-soaked, that you probe and caress.

*

Neither a star nor demon will ask

when I’ll want to die. But the hour presses,

its shadow looming over my shoulder,

with devastating precision its fractions

and multiples press as well while I

dismiss the unknown of kin

whose ill gaze eyes me from the mirror.

*

There’s no star asking me to write my life,

to clasp with my fingers at the dream and memory.

But

this pen is what balances my wound.

_{Mariani, Lucio, Traces of Time: New and Collected Poems, trans. by Anthony Molino. Open Letter Books, NY, 2012: 33.}