Val di Mello

Quotes in Italian from Quando finisce un amore by Riccardo Cocciante (Quando si vuole bene, Boventoon bv, 1986)

I feel the softness of my blouse as your hand touches it
You flick me a smile
Silk is the fabric of love, you say
In Italian it sounds even better

Quando finisce un amore

Your words, your hands, your look make me
buzz and hover like a honeybee
It's just what I need
at twenty-three and about to leave
the world I know

On your Yamaha 650
you take me to your favourite place
the wind around our bodies
the snow high on the Alps

Val di Mello, the valley of honey
the grass is a feather quilt
the water is golden
Its glistening froth clings to the rocks
floating, holding on to something
already gone

Your love sticks to me like honey
Quando finisce un amore, when love ends

Because of Val di Mello
because you — us — are not real
because a black hole is forming
a new home without you

Once, on the dark continent, I write to you
in my Italian latinizzato, as you call it,
but I don't hear you say this
I don't see your glorious smile,
I don't feel your hands reaching for mine
I don't sense the empty seat behind you on the Yamaha

Quando finisce un amore

Feel a knot in my throat
a hole in my stomach
an emptiness in my head
and understand nothing.

Quando finisce un amore
ti senti un nodo nella gola
ti senti un buco nello stomaco
ti senti un vuoto nella testa e non capisci niente

Then one morning,
a letter from you,
sent many months before
plans to visit,
now long gone


Tineke Van der Eecken (Western Australia)

First published in Poetry d'Amour 2013 (WA Poets Inc 2013).