Every NightEvery night I think of my mother and father.
I see them as from behind a curtain
or painted on the walls of the room
just like those yellowing figures
all spots and cracks and cobwebs
on the vaults of a church where crickets
and cicadas sing.
I would like to do over their faces and their eyes
like two dolls lost in a corner
or two saints forgotten in a niche,
but the clay melts, and it leaves my hands
bloodless and withered.
I would like to strangle God Almighty
or pray like a madman to know
what is this tangled skein,
this world’s hank of nettles.
(Translated by Luigi Bonaffini)