in nothingness (translated from the Italian)

i say    nothing has changed    i stay

crouched in my mind    i tremble always

under the umbrella of my desire 

now i crumple up my fear of infinite   i drop

my umbrella    i stand  ,  let all

infinite raindrops of nothingness fall    collapse their

empty darkblue into me

realize  :  i like the feel of sharp ink rain    alight

my soul    ( yesterday i knew her face not )

fresh into my soaking mind

oh    so what    i still tremble    i am

naked in all nothingness

of existence

realize  :

i need no umbrella    i need no

love    ( i search her not )    i need no thing

oh    so what    i search her always

why  ,  i float like this !    i swim in loss   all layers

of thriving alive melt     together  ;  upright

hands march through all air 

I give thanks for

I give thanks for
Kafka. I have never read Kafka.
For seven-year-olds
on roller coasters.

For nights in Barcelona.
For nights in my cold bed.

For the sister who wades through
the world's love for her.
For the mother who calls me Ginger.
For the sweet mud in the spring.
For the boy who forgets to
feel for my double-dutch heart
as he unhooks my bra.

I give thanks for my sandwich.
For its mayonnaise*. For its mustard.
For your ears and for your legs and
for your life and for our love.

*for Jorges Luis Borges, with whom I have a difficult relationship (the best kind of relationship).

an ending note:
I give thanks mostly for myself. The world universe recoils in horror. I write this poem anyway.
The world universe should please let me be selfish and twenty for a while.

nel mio nulla

Posso dire che nulla è cambiato. Posso rimanere qui, sempre nella mia mente, sempre tremando sotto l’ombrello del mio desiderio—ma ho recentemente scelto di buttar via la paura dell'infinito e lasciar cadere sul mio viso le infinite goccie di pioggia del nulla. 

Mi sono appena resa conto che mi piace tanto quella sensazione. Le goccie d’argento che cadono illuminano la mia anima (la quale non conoscevo fino ad oggi) ai miei occhi disperati. Tremo ancora e sono nuda nel nulla dell’esistenza.

Mi sono appena resa conto che non ho bisogno del mio ombrello. Non ho bisogno del mio amore (non lo cerco). Non ho bisogno neanche del mio nulla. Cerco, però, in ogni caso.

Per quale motivo esisto così? Continuo a nuotare. Gli strati della mia esistenza rigogliosa si agitano con il frullio delle mie mani nell'aria.

Nu descendant un escalier no. 2, Marcel Duchamp

well

It seems I fell into a well

please do persist

I wanted to tell you what she told me:
that change-ing in do-ing and feel-ing and see-ing
works upward as does the inchworm
who slowly scales the single sapling
to die on a branch, tired,
dead and baked by the sun.

Yes, every feat can seem larger than being;
and perhaps it bruises you to exist as an
inchworm, only here to drag your weight
up crusted tree bark, forever until death
against the weight of the world
and the wind and the sun and its glint,

but you are who you are, and I love you. My dear,
are we really so different
from the box turtle whose will
to swim only seems lost
to the limits of her box?

Please do persist. She made it out
that August afternoon,
and so, eventually,
will we.

i live only to sear you with saturnine eyes

while we linger

on the stony bridge

between my mind and yours

that exists

as we sit on this bus,

interrogation ensues.

we lay on the black wet stones

(to feel death is to really feel).

i am a brilliant spy. you are

still you, but you have

a five-o-clock shadow,

tweed suit (green tie loosened)

and earnest brain cells.

we stare at the thick sky.

i turn myself to face you.

i am the smiling, lasagna-haired

femme-fatale of your dreams,

a walking constellation of beauty

with uncompromising hips

and volcanic-hot lips

active to erupt the most

smoldering prose.

i've a dagger on my thigh

and a whip as my brow.

i live only to sear you with

saturnine eyes.

i wait for you to say the wrong words.

i click my tongue. (i snack on lies.)

i begin with some questions:

do you love your mother?

what do you think

of the fact

that i cry when i laugh?

do you think of me ?

are you on Facebook?

do you give a shit about Facebook?

do you give a shit about Anything?

we are finished. it's my stop.

the bridge metaphor was dumb anyway.

the dark (yawp)

to lay soft on the ground

without the moon's bright

manic-pixie sky sly, laughing,

skirt upturned,

is to bathe in ink alone

it is to dine at midnight

on velvet violet petals--

to be blind and to newly see,

hands on a gentle ground of moss

and horned monsters' fur

it is to be born and born again,

to crack open the sky's egg

in a scratchy nest of bramble

and to die and hatch again

only to cease and not return

but it is mostly to listen to girls

laugh,

smoke blunts and YAWP

in the most unfathomable

of bellows ever heard

by man and chickadee