In VainI saw my mother
step off the Vesuviana
with happy eyes,
girded by a petticoat
like a ghost
that the wind is trying to figure
where to drop.
A pair of cherries in her hair,
she leaned against a bud of sunlight.
It was a closed winter,
a hard morning was streaking
the waves of the sea.
She did not look at me. I shouted:
“Mom, it’s me, your son.”
Nothing! She didn’t recognize me,
I can’t understand it.
I keep on wondering, but every object
is weasel-like, and the air
remains far, the air...
The Vesuviana leaves
eternally without her,
but don’t ask me why.