from Meno Universe: “1, 2, 3...” by Guido Cupani – translated by Patrick Williamson


 
 
WE WILL SOON LEAVE THIS APARTMENT THAT IS NOT OURS

for another apartment that is not ours

The routine will start again

sifting choosing calling visiting

guessing if certain rooms are waiting for us

to bring the nails that will fix the furniture in place

the pots to boil on the fire books scrambled on shelves

if that is really our bed

– understand it from the eyes of one in the eyes of the other

I’ve lost count of the almost houses in the past

I don’t know how many more in the future

I cannot connect the dots on the map

I already see flying over the continents

and that starts with you and me

and that each time ends up 

somewhere else
 
 
 
Guido Cupani, Italian poet and astrophysicist, lives and works near Trieste. Poetry collections: Meno Universo (Dot.com Press, 2018), Le felicità (Samuele Editore, 2015), Qualcosa di semplice sulla neve (Edizioni Culturaglobale, Cormòns, 2013). E-book: James A. Potato, Ad ventum? (four Christmas stories) (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2014). Poems in Smerilliana, Zenit Poesia, Versante Ripido, Poetarum Silva, Atelier, Cinquesettecinque, Nazione Indiana, Circumference, Poem, and Perìgeion. Translations: Lettere – a te (Samuele Editore, 2012); Patrick Williamson, Traversi, Beneficato and Nel santuario (Samuele Editore, 2018, 2015, and 2013). Guido also collaborates on Perìgeion and Fare voci, and has notably won first prizes in Poesia Onesta 2016, Albiatum 2016, PAPS 2015, Giuseppe Malattia della Vallata 2015.

Patrick Williamson is an English poet and translator. Editor and translator of The Parley Tree, Poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (Arc Publications, 2012) and translator notably of Tahar Bekri, Gilles Cyr, Guido Cupani, and Erri de Luca. Most recent poetry collections: Traversi (English-Italian, Samuele Editore, 2018), Beneficato (Samuele Editore, 2015), Tiens ta langue/Hold your tongue (Harmattan, Paris 2014), Gifted (Corrupt Press, 2014), Nel Santuario (Samuele Editore, 2013; Menzione speciale della Giuria in the XV Concorso Guido Gozzano, 2014). Founding member of transnational literary agency Linguafranca.