Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Barbara Carle / Fabio Scotto
the awkward handwriting of the drafter.
Yet underneath the shelter reveals its empty stomach invaded
by the alternating ebb and flow of the tide. The dark walls can do
nothing against the wave that breaks on rotten wood corroding
its fixtures.
No one knows where the boat that once resided on these shores
has gone. Crushed by neglect or a storm, perhaps she offers her
thighs to the lust of pikes at the bottom off the little island Virginia.
WHAT’S LEFT OF A MALLARD
143
to Michèle Finck
On the edge of the pavement, still damp with rain, the bird lies
on its back. Without feet, nor head, who knows, perhaps because
of an impact with a car or the fangs of a rabid dog.
Not a pigeon, nor a swallow, perhaps a mallard because
of those greenish lines around the neck yellowing with pink haloes
in the sunlight. There with its tummy in the air, freshly dead,
feathers soaked with rain clotted in tufts above the grey pallor of
shining flesh which the cyclists avoid at the last moment with a
sudden shift of handlebars. Strange, no insect, nor fly, nor even a
gnat around, as though death in action weren’t yet death, rather a
simulated sleep in the shadows of leaves. Certainly he had rested
several times to catch his breath there on the high branches of fir
trees scented with dew, or below toward the lake in the shade of
the coppiced forest, mocking rats or squirrels, both agile but heavy
without wings, as they stared at him squeaking annoyed each time
he took flight for the lake on ashen slabs of water, with slow but
steadily flapping wings until he crossed the road of the wind sailing
among the clouds like a prince without a domain.
Now that the wing is hidden, that the celestial powder has
dissolved on stone, a mute song runs through you and your heart
pulsates in a final perennial beat tied to the earth’s embrace.