SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fifteen
ELISA BIAGINI
From These Knots
I wish to be a part of something else, not me,
to forget about angles, shapes,
cutting off my hands
with a sharp blow.
A new path that tastes of rotten leaves –
it wants to swallow me, digest me;
I probe it with my foot and sink.
I even shed my teeth; they fall around me like seeds,
and my hair grows heavy and woolly.
They can't be used to trace me:
the earth eats them up.
Blended into the green, I become a log.
From Filaments
You can't make reservations
for this journey:
you were born
booked, and it is
a never-ending
packing and unpacking
of suitcases and checking
if all the papers
are still
at hand.
From Filaments
If drawers and locks
get opened
elsewhere,
here it's time
for the mouth
to reopen:
to return
the borrowed air,
a breath that lasted
a lifetime.
Translated from the Italian by Tony Kitt
Elisa Biagini lives in Florence and teaches writing at NYU-Florence. She has published seven poetry collections, most recently Filaments (2020). Her poems have been translated into many languages, and she has books of her poetry published in Spain, France, and the US. A translator from English, she has published an anthology of contemporary American poetry, Nuovi Poeti Americani (Einaudi, 2006). Her website is www.elisabiagini.it
