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These poems are from Daniela’s forthcoming book GOING ON: Poems: 2000 Via Folios @Purdue University, Box 1374 Lafayette IN.47902-1374
E-mail VIA1990@aol.com
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Daniela Gioseffi
The Young Girl
who chattered without stopping
leaps in my heart.
She is lost among the lizards.
When she broke her glass hair ribbon
all the shops in heaven
closed their doors.
In the silence of the streets
I hear a sad voice
mature and flowering
coming from a nearby alley,
warning me.
I place my hand over my mouth
where the three silk stitches of her cry
smother drily.
Morning Fawn
She stands on his mossy hill,
child of the wild deer—
sniffs rain in the wind.
Summer’s newly born in her.
She whispered awake,
stood on nimble legs
to hear earth’s first damp song.
If her belly were not full of hunger,
he wouldn’t see her
and raise his gun.
I want only to admire her.
He wants to kill, skin,
eat her, devour her
fawny flesh,
possess her so completely
that she becomes him.
Some strange masculine will
I can’t fathom
reels in his sadistic urge—
too close to passion.
He sees a wild animal,
and thinks of grabbing his gun.
The doe-eyed fawn, above on the hill,
stands on green moss
unaware of his desire to kill.
I’d give more than I care to say
to save her. I want to win
acceptance in her eyes,
touch her velvet head
with silent hand, let her go caressed
for all time, light with will
in my mind beyond this hill.
Shadow
Grinning at me in the mirror
of the window this morning
came a shadow
with teeth.
The same one
who tonight comes
as the sun sets—
bringing in its warm hands
a bouquet of orchids
each with a throat
singing plaintively,
and from each throat shines a wet eye
imploring, “We are your dreams;
why haven’t you lived us?”
But my lips are too wrinkled
to answer with song,
and so the shadow
stands before me
bereft with her offering.
And so we celebrate
and grieve
the gifts we are given
always in transiency
forever a mystery
to ourselves
as we learn who we are
by measuring
our lost dreams
until dreaming
is done
and the sun
finally
sinks
beyond the curve
of Earth
our only Mother
who must devour us
to let new shadows,
carriers of flowers,
live.
