Superimposition: L' Avventura (1960)
I search this rock as if it had pockets,
looking for crevices & the absence
that fills them—it’s said a city lies
buried beneath. A vase, a relic, surfaces
as some proof of what hides below
obdurate lava, only to drop & shatter
when mishandled. Everything here complains
of disappearances—everyone sets to scour
the softer layers from the island’s face.
Colorless skies & funnel clouds warn
all away, but we still search without talking.
I bore slow—a barnacle on a whelk.
Search parties struggle to remember,
while the land wraps itself around them.
I see the island in my sleep; I hear its grinding.
Lisca Bianca means white bone & it’s barren
as the sun. I cross from one shore to another,
calling names, both yours & my own—
for thirty minutes or a day—it doesn’t matter.
I used to remember faces like pocks burned
into my skin. Now you look less a face
with every fruitless second, more
a grey smear against a grey shoreline.
Maybe this is all we have— a windy pantomime,
black & white swimsuits, seashells, memory games.
Perhaps there was a boat. Perhaps it took you away.
The lithograph above is by Bob Tomolillo and titled "Nederland Objects." Check out our interview with Bob.
The poet, Jeremy Allan Hawkins is a US Fulbright Alumnus and a native of New York. His work has recently appeared in Tin House, Salamander, Hayden's Ferry Review, PANK, and Super Arrow. He currently lives and teaches in France.