Intemperie

Bad Weather:

In watery nets

the convent of childhood

was reborn to me.

Where are you,

white stair?

I descended you

among the locust trees

and the earth

had no trenches.

Now on distant paths

a companion staggers,

carrying a dead man.

On his face

his eyelids fall

like lifeless violets.

Where are you

white stair?

A scream

slips from me:

the ground is gone.

Flames of perfumed smoke

along the way

no longer give shelter

in this rain.

Antonia Pozzi (translated by Amy Newman).