Until you

Until you, I never understood it. Until you, I never knew my body could turn to ice. All of a sudden – the bones, the skin and the most secluded inner become cold. The coldest, until I shiver, until I find anything but cold, until I secrete ice that cannot be soothed or melted or tempered.

 

Here the Northern wind is arriving, I guess our short marvellous summer we had in these days is coming to an end.

When the Northern wind comes, I miss you even more, I miss the neck and the beard where to shelter, the big hands where on to loose myself and the faint colour your skin takes within the cold. It is that kind of insistent pink with which your face is covered when you go out with the hands in the pockets and the collar of your checkered jacket up.

 

I bought exactly the same one. Recently. The jacket met me by chance. It is the same checkered texture and the same black. The cut is different, the wool is the same and is always Made in China from Prato. I often wonder what you would think to see me in that jacket.

 

Do think that I could even describe your smell, I recall it, when you’re cold then it lightly changes: it becomes more spiced. I recall it also after many years.

 

So, I enter the mirrored rooms where I take refuge while I watch myself multiplied ten times, squeezed to other men. I found those and I stay there with pleasure. When the sunrise bursts in and the reality, clangorous with its textured consequences, reveals itself to me and to the time consumed by being loved by others, I step back. Toward the cage in which nobody is allowed, you neither (even if you would be able to find the key).

 

Until you, I never occupied for one night – together with others – a room all wallpapered by mirrors.

 

Diana Marrone (Italy, 1973-), 2014 (unpublished), translation from Italian by the author

 

Cover: Hutopia by Alec Finlay (and co-creators), seen at Fondazione Prada, Venice (2018)

2 Responses to “Until you”

  1. Filou de Bergérac

    Smooth like an haiku in prose

    Reply
    • admin

      merci Filou, the EN translation should be heavily reviewed but is beyond my capacities!

      Reply

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