I wrote a poem
like a lonely woman
crying for someone
to make a gift of it
whoever passed by
dropped the well’s lid
without looking down

from too much yelling
my eyes got dry
I was blind
it was drought
the acacia grove whistled
for such waste

suddenly the wind
bent my crisscrossed arms
I breathed soul to soul
I cried tear from tear

someone left
without a word
my poem stuck to his soles
like dust

I tore a leaf and signed
I, anno domini

unborn baby
I yearned for you in my empty belly
like someone hiding his tears in a pillow
I blended the bitter yeast of life with tender wheat sap
to make you grow proud and strong
to be born in a cypress shade

my child
I swayed you on my arms like a rising sun
ending with burnt shoulders in a ragged cloth
I slept with my temple over flint stones
sipped water from summer tempests
fed on wild blackberry
in order to raise you

I baptized you with an old name
in the spring water under a cross
I wiped your front with untouched grasses
bringing you up to the sky on my palms
and cleansed back to my chest

my son
I promise you that you shall have the fast horse fed on embers
that the red and the green kings shall make peace
that forests shall grow bigger and golden fields taller
as far as you’ll remember me
under your feet

the small woman from the attic sits cross-legged
with her pink plastic hair rollers for hours. her
life spins like the spool of thread on the sewing
machine. she sleeps wearing a flowery morning
gown in the room with a flowery wallpaper and
a secondhand carpet imitating autumn grass. she
boils her lime tree tea and dairy free pasta on the
electric boiling ring. she washes her hair with nettle
essence shampoo. once a month she goes to the
central store to see new dress designs then she reads
at midnight group portrait with lady. in a sideboard
she hides a pair of perfumed lace gloves the color of
the skin. she wears them when the spring wind blows.
on a shelf in the kitchen a grated lemon in an egg
saucer is slowly getting dry.

in my man’s palm I lay my tired ear
and it’s like I can enter there completely
sleeping eyes opened a wise child’s nap
my primer book on my knees

he draws the curtains slowly
to prevent sunburns on my front
wipes a bead of sweat with his fingers
I simply don’t think at all

because all that I ever asked him
was just that round and small bed inside his left palm
where all my dreams could die
for real

this man is not alive
only his palm touches my temple my ankle my hip
he draws them in broken lines while I’m still asleep
eyes opened

it’s christmas dad
lend me once more your hand to compare ourselves
among the living people i ever touched
only your hand was bigger

if you want to we can go to the seashore hand in hand
to leap wave after wave together
or you can take me to the puppet theater
where the orange tiger swallows pancakes
while we’re clapping along with our big hands

this year i didn’t grow home bread and
i didn’t burn candles
i simply crouched with half-opened eyes
leaning against high cushions
over a cross scratched with my nails on the bed sheets
lying in wait
fishing like you dad
sometimes hours other times days
go by without any catch
apart from your pale and slippery smile
in the last photograph

dad
why on earth didn’t you put aside the fishing rod

and it rolls head over heels
the heart
over the puffy autumn leaves
where a squirrel hops

I pull the wire fence
with my hands
it runs to and fro
the little mischievous one

a child laughs because it has a tail
I even forgot how I started to cry*
......................................................
**leaves lay under the snow
like mummified love letters
some of them freezing
over the acorns not picked yet
while the red monster hibernates

I will eat many seeds this winter
in order to toughen my roots
to grow branch over branch
in my hollowed willow

next spring I will pass over the fence
where we once kissed
to laugh myself of its tail
till I shall cry

Before my father died I bought a ***
with a small plant, a fragile sapling
with pale green dotted leaves. He came
to my place to see me, bringing a slice
of watermelon with jagged green stripes
on its rind. He placed it in the fridge and
looked at me, asking with stern eyes: “Do  
you forgive me?” I didn’t understand his
words and I answered “Yes” with all my
heart, stabbed by his stare that moment.

He died a few days later, after calling me on
the phone, saying that I should move into
another house. I did that, taking with me
from that place my small green plant beginning
to rise. I placed it on my desktop, letting it grow...
leaf after leaf from her thin stem, like a stairway.
Eight years passed and she’s my only child, my
only friend, my only lover. She grew steadily
and slowly, I changed her compost a few times.
She’s still here, my small calico greeny treasure.
Two years ago I became a proud grandmother
for three new shoots, stemming at her feet.

I had to tie it to a plastic stick to help it grow up
And when I look at it I still can see my father’s
eyes, taking hold of my heart.