Fragments of a Name, poetry by Francesco Levato

I

For the first time in countless years
I fear death;
the absence of mint,
searching the trash,

then the soles of their feet for holes
drilled, not worn from asphalt

broken as bone.

II

Silence. No muffled swell, no wave
of glass
breaking over baskets
of cardamom and clove,

just the thickening of a heartbeat,
the anticipation of cordite;
a taste too familiar,
too precise.

III

Now is a time of watching; what you say,
what you do.

The television warns to keep indoors,
not to trust; that a knock at the door

can mean so much more than the black
bag strung
on a bandolier strap.
Fragments of a Name cont.

IV

It’s not the grate of concrete on cheek,
or the stiffening

of thighs stained red,

it’s after the back can release, after
wrists are unbound,

that the feeling returns
to limbs gone dead.

V

A thousand times, in a thousand days

“Baqiya ib hayatkum… Akhir il ahzan…”

may this
be the last of your sorrows.

VI

It has come to this,
that I should want
more for this fistful of dirt

than for water to wash liberation
from his body; to whet my tongue

that I might speak again.