Concentration �if you look at me with mercy And speak to me, a music fills the air And I forget that the wound burns. (Giuseppe Ungaretti) You and the baby somehow fell asleep. Close to midnight after eight bottles of Sardinian lager on our hotel room balcony I am alone, reading Ungaretti�s Il Lampo della Bocca. Below, the open-air discotheque blares by the swimming pool where sober Italian revellers dance like drunks at a Hogmanay ceilidh and Gloria Gaynor sings, I Will Survive. I concentrate hard on Ungaretti. You think I�ll crumble? You think I�ll lay down and die? |