 |
Paola Turroni |
from Flight Plan
Every branch is a bait
to my hobbling flight
blackbird on a lime, here I am now
upright wings, marked by plumes
as obstinate lines
insist on being oblique.
I’m luring for smiles
from the branch and descend
crumbs chosen beforehand
to reward me
one wing on my back, one wing in my hand
while a cat yowls
ungovernable love.
The window takes on
shapes from outside
like playdough of a baby god,
earth gives up
its flight plan.
I change my skin on the stones
and leave scales behind
you used them to paint
the yearbook of moulting.
I lose feathers on the edge
and the noise they make
falling
tastes of rain and wine.
I ask you for a voice track
to hear a twisting tongue
commanded by the arm
ploughing the womb
seeking and confusing you.
I’m an uneven footprint
jellyfish on my arm
legs held tight through the chair
I’m a request
an attempt
at changing
prescriptions.
I’m the light under the linen
the basket thrown over on the carpet
I’m the Alps
I’m your game
said-just-like-that-in-one-breath
Cassandra’s scalp
hanging under the spy-hole.
The two that i am have
no memory of each other
I learned how to make
vows with affectation
I withdrew from the free zone –
I’m on the other side of myself’s
honesty –
the running, jumping somersault on the bed
I couldn’t do as a child.
Female circle of generations, I close
with violent sterility
I watch them, no-one reckoning mine
I love them, full of heavy
and perfect life,
me, unable to make way
with my breast.
I know about her lust
of a ship; a hunger empire
raised on abundance
and rules made in blood,
if she were to touch her hips
with her hand.
With you, I ignore
how empty your suitcase
on that train where
she never arrived.
You’ve built patient beds,
your breakages make us strong –
with silence I refuse
condescending.
Translated by Marina Morbiducci
Click here to read Italian versions of these poems
BIO: Paola Turroni was born in 1971. After humanistic studies, she earned her DAMS (Discipline Arte Musica e Spettacolo) degree at Bologna University; she attended cinema and theatre courses in Milan; she now runs workshops on cinema and cinematic language. She cooperates in theatre and cinema productions as both producer and artist. She writes fiction, poetry, drama and criticism for journals of cinema and literature. In 1999 she was awarded first prize at “Concorso di scrittura creativa” in Cesena; in 2000 she won first prize “Prosa Kaleidos” in Cesenatico; in 2001 she received a nomination at “Concorso Edizioni Tracce” held in Pescara, and in 2003 at “Concorso I Colori delle Donne” held in Ascoli Piceno. In 2000 she published her poetry collection titled Animali (Rimini). Her short story collection Due mani di colore (“Double Coat of Paint”) is in print and her poetry collection Flight Plan has just been published (Rimini).
Marina Morbiducci is the Italian translator and editor (with E. G. Lynch) of Tender Buttons (Liberilibri, 1989). She has also edited, with Annalisa Goldoni, an anthology on the Black Mountain Poets and Robert Creeley. She published the Italian translation of Etruscan Pages by Kathleen Fraser (Roma, 2001). In March 2003 she received her Ph.D., writing on “Gertrude Stein in T/tempo,” University of Pescara. She presently teaches in the Italian Department at the University of Malta.