Journal of Italian Translation

226
Journal of Italian Translation
ROBERT VISCUSI (from A New Geography of Time, Guernica, 2004, p.
53)
Goons and Lagoons
Gangsters in gondolas glide down the streets of Las Vegas.
What does it matter that this is a desert?
The water is a form of liquidity.
The gangsters are my leaders insofar as I am an Italian in America.
Desert lakes glitter with pumped cash.
Don’t tell me I am not special, because I have been to Italy.
In the Biblioteca San Marco I have read manuscript codices.
The water climbs the marble stairs in the entrance halls.
Seaweed hangs from every stone you can see of the library’s
foundation.
Albert Anastasia was murdered in a barber’s chair at the Sheraton.
He had a brother who was a priest at Saint Lucy’s in the Bronx.
Father Anastasia didn’t speak English too well.
We used to go to the Bronx just to make our confessions.
The Cadillacs would silently turn the corner of Allerton Avenue.
Gangsters in cherrywood coffins would slide into the church.
The Island of San Michele in the lagoon is the cemetery.
That water eats everything.
After a few decades the graves are empty.
Venetians one after another have lain in the same graves.
In America it is the cities we bury.
The money eats them the way water eats corpses.
VALERIO MAGRELLI (inedito, 2005)
Guarda questa bambina
che sta imparando a leggere:
tende le labbra, si concentra,
tira su una parola dopo l’altra,
pesca, e la voce fa da canna,
fila, si flette, strappa
guizzanti queste lettere
ora alte nell’aria
luccicanti
al sole della pronuncia.