Literary Matters 5.3 - Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and ...

Romeo and WhatsernameYou came to my home becauseI had asked you to, because,at least the spontaneity felt right.The very pink of courtesy.Only two nights prior, duringour first immersion into an us,I took your hand shyly duringthe second act of Romeo and Juliet,and held on as those two foolsfell dead into a heap,the slowly cooling detritus of passion.Even Shakespeare could grasp thathappy endings don’t sell.Tempt not a desperate man.Still, Sunday at four, Igreeted you at my tender threshold,relieved you of one crinkly sackof Aldo’s best chocolate-dipped biscottiand the mute glory of two dozen tulips.Far too many for a man of meager vases.So we together filled a red can with them,their amputated ends clipped clean and plunged.And soon, the miracle of unfolding,their most delicate parts exposed to the evening,until everything in the room was humbled.Poem from A Factory of Ideas(A Madman’s Monologues)io porto il quarantunodi scarpe ma ho imparatoche se le porto un tantopiù piccole quarantaa volte trentanoveche così fanno malecon la testa sto megliomy size for shoes is eightbut I have come to learnthat if I wear a smallersize just a little smallerseven and a half sixsometimes so that they hurtmy head feels so much better- Antonello BorraAntonello Borra teaches at the University of Vermont.His volumes of poetry are Frammenti di tormenti(prima parte) (Longo, 2000), Frammenti di tormenti(seconda parte) (Lietocolle, 2006), Alfabestiario (Lietocolle,2009), and the illustrated, bilingual Alphabetabestiario(Fomite, 2011). Translations of his poetryhave appeared in English, Catalan, and German.He has translated into Italian, from English, poems ofW. S. Merwin and Greg Delanty; from German, poemsof Erich Fried; and from Spanish, poems of RobertoSosa and José Watanabe. He is a regular contributorto magazines and journals in both Italy and theUnited States. His other publications are books andarticles on literary criticism and language pedagogy.This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,may prove a beauteous flower.We ate the fish I had prepared, assuring youit had swum up from Chile just for this.O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified.You measured each morsel as the fire snappedand Stephan Grapelli drew his jazzy bow.Like softest music to attending ears.I suggested the sofa for comfort.The time and my intents are savage.Your mouth was warm and tasted like fifteen.Before long we were peeled and joined(as if it could have been otherwise).One, two and the third in your bosom.Until we fell heavy and damp with exhaustionand you remembered you should havebeen fled two hours ago.For you and I are past our dancing days.After the red of your taillightshad extinguished beyond the turn,Eyes look your last, arms take your last embrace.I sat amid the ruins and considered, howsome beginnings must be content to end.But alas, in the morning I phoned youto inquire if we might continue orperhaps venture to begin again.You said you would get right back to meand most surely you did, three days later.O! True apothecary! Thy drugs are quick!If I had anticipated that it wouldall conclude with poisons, I wouldnot have pretended you were a great lover.At lovers’ perjuries, they say Jove laughs.-Daniel Thomas Moran26 LITERARY MATTERS | VOLUME 5.3 | FaLL/WINTER 2012