from Try Track (Anello di prova, Raffaelli Editore 2016)
by Lucia Brandoli
You told me that men laugh in four tempos,
in simple tempos, that men, all of them,
are like basketballs – and you’re right, indeed
– and women are like soccer-balls. And if
you pay attention
they laugh in three, indeed,
breathless, discarding, losing
ground under their feet.
And these days I feel like a tennis-ball
on a football table–motionless, yellow
and totally uncomfortable. Like at the Monk,
where nobody wants
to play tennis-table
for fear
of loosing or ruin his status around
a Burberry trench
with so much strain
built up. And then
I wonder why
the hell he get
the socialist badge.
Rome today, Brisbane tomorrow.
Eight hours after, eight hours before,
together, it’s no big deal:
two months are not ages,
neither a year.
It’s winter even there, but only at night,
while you piss outside
at three in the morning
in your pajama
looking at Three
Sisters.
A special thanks to Federica Bacchelli