Alessio Zanelli is an Italian poet who has long adopted English as his artistic language and has published widely in literary magazines around the world, including California Quarterly, Dream Catcher, First Class, Italian Americana, Mattoid, Orbis, Other Poetry, Poesia, Potomac Review and Poetry Salzburg Review.
We are all the others.
Each of us.
All we are or attain in life
is also due to all the others.
Everybody—alone—is nobody.
We feel lost—
ever more confounded
each time the turn arrives,
when winters drive summers off
and autumns are missing.
It is as difficult as desirable
to fix circles in the water.
Once cast the stone
the hand has just withdrawn
and already the ripples are fading,
the circles die out away from the center.