1944-1947

I

It was wartime, at night the crystals

quaked in the sideboards while squadrons

droned east to west, or south,

toward Italy. Who was I

and who were you? That's how it started.

The lake at Zurich was long and gray,

the streetcars sky-blue in the snowy air.

Il

"You're my life . . " Old carts heaped

with Milan's rubble trudged

toward our future, now here,

the modest hill of the past:

that in April sports a little green life.

Back then it was so much work, the entire

city and the years. The way you've been since

that morning, still my life, eyes

that watch me now

from a place that's ours but beyond us both.

m

You discovered the sea at night, some

places green, some wine-dark.

A strip of seaweed floated midwater.

A destiny can change like that, unseen.

The carapace, the purplish "nun"? showed no sign of life.

Then it pulled loose, dropped to the bottom on impartial

wings.

Was it fear, or what? Truth fell silent then

IV

It was as they said,

one day we'd have life behind us

and you would tell me, "I'm not young anymore."

And I'd answer just by looking at you

to keep you safe, my love,

from whoever might bear us away

helpless together. The way I look at you

now, the way I ask you

for whatever-a question, sentence,

or judgment-now

that you're everything, my only

soul trembling

in this first darkness.

"The 'modest hill' is the hill of San Siro, made from the wartime rubble of

urban Milan." (Fortini's note)

?Fortini uses the word "monaca," "nun," which he glosses as "a mollusk

reddish purple in color, winged." (Translator's note)