By: Lorenzo Curti
The blindest flame
of a gaze
slowly ransacks through the grey
buildings
some children mimic the trembling shadows
of the street lamps – switched on right before the sunset –
laughing and bringing talismans
in their hands
the edges of the day
bend around the corners
of the grey palaces
and there’s a quiver that forces us
to sing and to stamp our feet upon the ground
a quiver that makes us mutate our skin
like snakes
the asphalt’s noise is the mirror
of the raindrops
and a ferocious humankind
without time and evergreen
is the drizzling laceration
the cut
that spreads from electricity’s cracks
you can bring me all the gifts you want
but they’ll be thorns
on the threshold between my body and yours
and I’ll always be in that instant before
on my knees along the Thames
with deformed flesh as in a Bacon painting
– eventually empty
Wells Street Journal 