interwoven wire
corrogated steel

brass grills
iron gratings
rusted copper
molten silver
vented aluminum
flattened alloys

Beaten and cut
traced and realized
jiggled and wiggled
fitted and shaken
melted and scratched
prodded and glossed
edged
turned
screwed
bolted
derived
split
cooled
pounded
and abrased

I am a grateful dollop of meringue
to put under your tongue and feel dissolve
To stain the clouds with love, and trace outlines

in the tall grass. To narrow all angles

and hover over maple groves, to lie

tinglingly zipped into my denser self

Squared by copper
I bend into matte
toccami nel cuore
non ho più spazio per amore
sono spenta
dalle candele non ce vento qui
l'aria gira nella bicicletta
ma sopra sono diventata panna

Hear me/mi senti?

There is a gap between C3 and C4, behind my larynx

a blue foam room and a shaving cream slide
give way to my stomach

Under my jaw are yellow tight ropes

My ears are wind tunnels

that ache and hiss

A scourge travels up my eye escalator

and enters the scalding nasal passage

Simmering drops collect under my eardrum

forming impressions of my waning pallor

My toes wiggle in the ashes

In this chilly Autumn

I hide fingers away
and slide them into my intercostal pockets

also known as my empty ribs

Can anybody hear me

Why is this cloud yellow?

Can Indigo be so lovely

I look beyond the flood lights at my indigo infinity

obviously I block out the chimneys

obviously

and I play with The One Me, my clipped hair.

that I set aside and hid in the rail of a wooden bunk

It is intermixed with my mother's strands

I know she can feel me around her this way

all the single strands intertwining

Kissing me like

she does at night in the linen sheets

Did

with my night light still on

How cliche

I could hear her playing my favorite Etudes

and I would imagine I was George Sand

That I was in bed with Chopin

Back then

To continue now is hopeless, my only words are

crescendo and largo

The piano, outside my door, and my linen,

crisp and cold

fold me

We are between my fingers
enfolded around my palm


listening to the indigo sky

The c sharp and her frozen brown wave

Andante
Largo

andate al lago?

al lago

Come andate?

Andante
andate in treno?

andate

Sono andati furiosamente nel fuoco

Paolina Weber

2/13/11

for Giovanna Friedman Ukleja who survived Auchwitz at 16 with Romano Ukleja, a polish worker, who saved her in the line. When Auschwitz was liberated they hitchiked to my grandparents in Rome.She told me they had on German nazi uniforms and that my grandfather took them straight to Giolitti, near the Pantheon, for ice cream.

*Translation from Italian Music Tempo and colloquial:

andante=walking (moderately slow)

Largo=broad (slow and dignified)

andate al lago?= are you going to the Lake?

al lago (the lake)...

Come andate? =How?

andate (moderately slow (solemmo))
andate in treno?= you go by train.

andate=go, then go.

sono andati furiosamente nel fuoco=they went furiously into the fire

I love my shredder

Confetti for Casanova

In Piazza San Marco

Shivering under his lace

I spliced up my statements

I frazzled my bills

I spit murky water

into acrid snow

The fauna have receded

I flee to the pine forest

Where only the deer can see what I stole:

my figs

my nails

my teeth

These offerings

I give to Orestes

to strip me of solicitousness

to cleans me of smell

to burn my longing

Casanova

Please bring me to

the Monastery closet

on San Lazzaro

Take me in your narrow boat

We breath the lagoons air and ride red waves

I push my heart beyond spine

The name Aurelia comes fom golden light
But even more she is my favorite street, Via Aurelia, that ribbons up the side of Tuscany by the sea.
My favorite highway on earth.

And her brother Leandro
means lion man I know
Or from Shakespeare I know
Just like Aurelia is Marcus Aurelius I know.

But mostly Leandro is the line of Oleanders
that line the inside of this Mediterranean highway
Oleanders that accompany me all the way up the dry rosemary coast of the Maremma


That is where your brother came from
He is the flower*, oleandro, that accompanies you
on your way through

*Oleanders are white and pink flowering bushes with sturdy branches and consistent buds

Siblings

The clothes are folded away and the bracelets placed in the same cardboard box decorated like a valise
where my tiny premature bracelet the size of four fingers is still held
and now your brother's bracelet
Me, the only child
has created these two
bracelets
in hospital snaps and democratic print
I made siblings
and gave them each other to love