Alberto Pellegatta
Winter 2024 | Poetry
Three Poems
GIACOMO OR ABOUT CHILDHOOD
You are right not to speak, sentences
will not leave you in peace.
Entirely flushed you depend
on our prejudices.
In any case nothing is more important
than pushing liquids out of the body.
Even spring damages us
covered by spores. You squeal
under our disdainful magnolia.
They learn to fly in mid-June,
when you can’t keep your clothes on.
You’ll have your favorite restaurant, shoes
and coats of envy.
FENNEL
It wasn’t for holy digestion,
the Pope didn’t use it to make an infusion.
Burning the seeds quickened
the flames of the condemned man.
* in Italian, Finocchio (Fennel) is also a slur referring to homosexuals. The poem refers to the origin of the epithet: fennel seeds were thrown on the fire that burned those condemned for sodomy to accelerate the combustion.
VITRUVIO
In this poem you tie your own shoelaces.
Talent without experience is ill-fitting,
understanding is already a choice
if you have something to hide. Without recourse:
lies and metaphors use the same dictionary.
The sound of a jaw
in an unclean hole
scares you, where a dog creaks
snowy and our chickens scream.
Let me write twenty point three,
the borrowed woods
and waiters after work.
I killed him for smoking under my windows.
Alberto Pellegatta (b. 1978) is a poet and journalist from Milan (Italy). His books—Ipotesi di felicità (2017) and L’ombra della salute (2011)—published in the most important Italian poetry collection, Lo Specchio Mondadori, won different literary prizes. His work has appeared in many European magazines and anthologies, including London Poetry, Magma Poetry, Erostepost, La Stampa, Nuovi Argomenti, Poeti di vent’anni (Stampa, 2000), Nuovissima poesia italiana (Mondadori, 2004), Almanacco dello Specchio (Mondadori, 2008) and elsewhere. He was awarded the Amici di Milano Prize and the Cetonaverde Prize. He works as a critic for newspapers and magazines.