Mantis 19 (Spring 2020)
New Poetry

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Viviana Fiorentino

(Untitled)

dismantling
 
and daring the core
 
 
no streets no gates
no avenues
or glimpses or rain dapples
no houses or faces
or flowers or surfaces
no walls no shops
 
dismantling

and daring
 
the pledge in the chest
the house
with no edge
 
the core with windows
that open inwards
 
 
dismantling
 
for
keeping the flesh in the bones
for
reassuring yourself
 
coffee in the morning
blood pressure
pills
wash
clothes
and again
back
 
dismantling
for looking yourself
in the mirror
 
the repeated prayer
 
 
dismantling
 
and beating in your chest
 
somewhere
 
dismantling
for breathing
the simple act of living
 
in and out
 
dismantling
for keeping the feet on the ground
 
at each round you enter your own door
 
dismantling
 
because you don’t know
what’s home
what’s the door
what’s your contour
what’s yourself
 
dismantling
for touching again the hips
 
the contours of your face
the lips
and clasping the hands
 
- intersected
as a little cage –
 
there inside                 you hide
you are small
and protected
 
dismantling
           
and
 
escaping the invisible prison
 
in the fragile morning
 
dismantling 
 
in the clouded mirror
 
your face
and writing your name
right to left
and a heart
around
 
for finishing the drawing
 
the work of loving

Land

I kiss you
 
between my tongue      
                                     and                        your tongue
(I look for a place                                           /the exact space)
 
 
I bury the scents of memories
(a new tongue cannot tell what we’ve been through).
 
 
 
This is the land, a pause of time,
 
                                                 this is the land I looked for.
 
 
This is the land, the gesture of your fingers,
 
                                 when you open your palms          
                                                                                   as a rose.
 
 
This is the land, the place where we wait for
                                                               a ray of light –
                                                                        it won’t leave our bones.
 
 
Life stripped our clothes.
 
            Naked, a ground still has flesh below.

VIVIANA FIORENTINO lives in Belfast where she teaches Italian literature. In 2018, she was awarded two Italian poetry prizes. Her poems, short stories and translations have appeared in international literature magazines (Nazione Indiana, Poetarum Silva, Carteggi Letterari, Brumaria, FourXFour NI Poetry Journal, Poethead, The Blue Nib, Paris Lit Up). A selection of her poems has been published in the anthology Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019). In 2019, she published the poetry collection In Giardino (Controluna Publishing House) and the novel Tra mostri ci si ama (Transeuropa Publishing House) in Italy. She co-founded two activist poetry initiatives (‘Sky, you are too big’, ‘Letters with wings’) and Le Ortique (forgotten women artists blog).