THE SONG OF HARD TIMES
Hard times make strong men
and strong men make good times
but what about the women’s
callused hands, squeezing ice-cold
rivers out of dull gray rags,
scrubbing every inch of their husbands’
granite gravestones with patchy swollen
skin, what about their muscles
stretching a cup of cornmeal
into a fine meal, what about
the violence of their knuckles
their flying clogs and wooden spoons
that never fail to find you, no matter
how deep you burrow on the inside.
CINEMA SOTTO LE STELLE
We sat in circles, my friends and I,
daytime heat slowly radiating
from cobblestones as plum-
colored skies fell upon us.
Breathing in the steam of summer
we drank flat beers in see-through cups
and boxed wine that tasted
like a rehearsal of adulthood.
Cracked voices of Neorealismo actors
rolled out in the main square—faded
miracles, stamped in shadow theater
on the walls of City Hall. It’s movie night
in town. Forever young, Resistenza fighters
look upon us with benevolent grins. Eighteen,
twenty years old at most. No judgment
in their gaze. We’ll disappoint them later.
For tonight, we are all the same—talking a big game
with mouths dried out by tannins as we sit, crisscrossed
legs, along the radial spikes of our bikes’ wheels,
tossed on the ground without a care. And I swear
we are never getting old. Not tonight. Not ever.
Bio:
Valentina Fulginiti is a scholar, educator, and writer hailing from Ithaca, NY. An alumna of the universities of Toronto and Bologna (Italy), she is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University. Her debut novel won the Premio Bianciardi Inediti in 2024 and is forthcoming in Italy. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sacramento Literary Review, Panoply Zine, and Merion West. She also serves as a reader of poetry for Wildscape Literary Magazine.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 