Poetry Magazine
from Quatrains: Second Hundred
107
I have always been the way I am
even when I wasn't the way I am
and none can ever know the way I am
because I am not merely the way I am
122
Him or someone else, what's it to me
if every time I'm lonely afterward?
Alone here with my moribility . . .
if there only were such a lovely word . . .
124
These hemorrhoids, this bleeding from behind . . .
I'm spilling out of all my holes—yes, all.
My ass is wrecked . . . (My speech is so refined . . .)
There ought to be a plumber I could call.
154
You want to die with me, you dumb shit?
Excavate my heart with your shovel?
This is getting to be a hell of a habit.
Want me to swear on my knees? Grovel?
Source: Poetry (December 2007).
Biography
Patrizia Valduga's latest collection, published by Einaudi, is Prima Antologia.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, The Body, Nature, Growing Old, Relationships, Men & Women
Poetic Terms Rhymed Stanza
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