I have two twenty-year old sheets
and a flowered pillow-case
that I keep at home for close friends,
always using them but always thinking
and praying, fearing the tear
that could come after the washing,
each time conjecturing
an alternative use of the cuttings
as curtain, handkerchief, anti-dust case,
as slipper-bag.

My friends don't know that every time I tremble a little
in watching them blissfully sleep
in the shroud of a past that's only mine
that every time thins a little for them and every time,
thanks to them, tortures me.

Translation: 2004, Gabriele Poole