In what shapes do words stay while they wait
to be spoken? Buonanotte absorbs into puddles
on roadsides, immune to goodnight’s grip
on grandfather clocks. Se fossi in te climbs
through clean metal chain link while
If I were you hangs on screens on back doors.
In Italian the question of what does it mean
becomes how does it want to be heard? The word
for why is the word because. One word for love
is also the word for fish hook: l’amo.
The verb be in love is reflexive: innamorarsi.
To use it, we need a subject, not an object.
I myself love. You yourself.
You’re asleep in the bed as I write this.
On the headboard five stems of yolk-yellow narcissus
run rain-splattered shadows along your left arm.
Your elbow extends toward the space I will fill.
Gomito, your elbow. Gomitolo, a skein of yarn.
The word in Italian for puzzle is puzzle.
You told me this while we were walking
beside the river. There was still the same star
in the sky. A pale blue balloon
had been trapped in the dam
and it floated the falls in broad rings. A metaphor
for anything. We swallowed its weightless bobbing
in the white undoing water. Pallone, I said, and pointed.