Giuseppe Cavatorta

OF FORETELLING IN A NEW LANGUAGE

resting

                                beneath the surface of a birthmark

                                                                            you find a dream

               respectful of its boundaries

waiting for

               time and action

                                              to coincide

               before overflowing into a life

                               that discolors the tenuous of grays

                               and tears apart

                                              the thready webs of kronos.

within that dream

abandon yourself

to the eternal breaking of the present

               into before and after

                              into a past of aspirin

                                              and dryness of veins

                              into a future

                                              promising truths

                                              that don’t fear denial

                                                                            in the double.

               and in the down time

               cut your words open

                                              one by one

                                                             question their fleshy parts

                                                                           their entrails.

Beppe Cavatorta , born in Parma, is Professor of Italian at the University of Arizona. He has authored or edited several articles and volumes on poetics, and, his poetry in Italian, has been collected in two volumes: La stanza sgombra (Transeuropa, 2020) and Istantanee di un amor de lonh (Samuele Editore, 2020). Some of his English poems have appeared in journals such as Bluing the Blade, The Closed Eye Open and Voices of Italian Americana.