Do you see how I am
twisted, contracted?
You see this foot,
when I sit down, how do I put it on?
It is all for the effort, over many years,
not to hurt people. Pressed
against a seat, on the overcrowded bus,
to stay in place, to avoid
my neighbors
from even the slightest contact.
On the benches in the waiting rooms
or on the train, in the corridor, it was painful
every moment to feel the darkness
of my knee and theirs brush against me.
Hours and hours, whole days: one next to the other
we used to be like the flavors of ice cream
in the station bar.
Of true between us, of right,
the space of two fingers was left.
Umberto Fiori (Italy, 1949, from Tutti, 1998, Marcos Y Marcos, translation by Slow Words)