Journal of Italian Translation

Adria Bernardi/Raffaello Baldini
I came here believing it was going to be games
of skill, with handkerchiefs, cards,
that they’d cut your tie in two, stuff like that,
entertainment, a top hat
and out flies a dove,
but to make people laughing-stocks,
no, no, this I won’t stand for, I have a business, I,
have a clientele, I have a reputation,
he’s talking to someone else: “Would you like
to have a Guzzi? the California model?” I don’t know that
particular model, “There it is, it’s yours, would you like to take it
for a ride?”
and this idiot takes off, vroom, vroom,
straddling a chair, don’t these people get it? do people just not listen?
Dato, he’s got a staff position for the Province,
and Carlín, even him, he’s got a wife and kids,
how could he have pulled this off? did he trick them?
what could he have said to them? you will not thwart me, you will
do as I command,
or maybe he promised them money? but he’s coming this way, oh no,
he looks at me out of the corner of his eye every so often,
it would be quite a feat to put me to sleep,
or what if I fake it?
whatever he wants, for awhile, it would be hilarious,
then, this would be the best part: “That’s enough now, I’m bored,
I’m going to get a cup of coffee, see you guys later,”
now that would really thwart him, then afterwards
people would run him out of town, poor guy, they’d chase him all
the way to Cesena,
no, no way, I’m telling you no, you’re not glomming on me,
that’s that, but then what if it has consequences for him?
I go ahead and just let him say it: “This fellow is not an appropriate
subject,”
then I go back to my seat and that’s all she wrote,
meanwhile my friend over there on the Guzzi is not slowing down,
he’s leaning into all the curves, he’s going to end up falling,
it’s been going on for a quite some time now,
no, that’s it, he’s stopped, if I could just say something to him,
for his own good, so he could come back to his senses,
but there’s no way to do it, I wave to him, no response,
doesn’t he understand? is he afraid? come here,
you might have gotten into an accident, he’s gone over to someone
else now:
“You have a great gift,”
that fat guy, the redhead, who works at the methane gas plant,
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