Another selection from Patrizia Cavalli translated, from the Italian, by Gini Alhadeff:
I had cut my hair, darkened my eyebrows,
adjusted the right fold of my mouth, thinned
my body, raised my height. I had even lent
the shoulders a triumphant bent. A girl
boy
again, on the streets, a workman’s gait,
no superfluous embellishments. But I hadn’t forgotten
the languor of the chair, a clouded vision.
And I distributed caresses, not knowing I did. My secret
body untouchable. In the lower back
expectation condensed without satisfaction; in the gardens
long walks, advice repeated,
the sky sometimes blue
sometimes not.
(From My Poems Won’t Change the World: Selected Poems of Patrizia Cavalli, edited by Gina Alhadeff. Translation © 2013 by Gini Alhadeff. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. Photo by Lauren Finkel)
The Dish 