Pierluigi Cappello: White

From a ways, the sky and your hands
come to my eyes, from some distant part of you;
it’s snowing out, you’re all in the white of the snow
every track in the candor a wound
and the field beyond the window is a body
a glance that becomes a pronouncement,
the heat of breath, your head adrift in sleeplessness;

that’s where it returns, in a word translated into silence
where the sparrows tie loose knots
your palms on your eyes, chest on your knees
forehead in the snow.

 

Translated from the Italian by Todd Portnowitz