Valerio Magrelli

1957 / Rome

Labor Pains

Presence and absence.
Geological mutation.
Me yielding under his weight.
Subsidence
and my slow sinking.
But in truth I don't yield
under the weight, for I am atop him
and descend, from up down, Toboggan,
and his weight is a pull
from below, taking form by enticing me
under, sand from sand,
so that I might appear upside-down like
my own filiation
at the opposite end
of this genetic hourglass.
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