– Dying is this losing weight in a loop –
all the lemmas we’re fond of
left to decompose in an unfamiliar tongue
of worms and mud, the fragile stem
of body, crossed by a tremor
of fireflies, the gaze folded back on itself.
We try to remain intact after the fall,
even if our eyes betray us welcoming
darkness like another skin. The flower
of a nebula swallows us to the root:
what happens after, when the earth ends
and the inside-out galaxy of never again begins?
Silvia Rosa (Turin, 1976) holds a degree in Educational Sciences and works as a teacher. She has written five poetry collections, including “Tutta la terra che ci resta” (Vydia, 2022) and “Tempo di riserva” (Giuliano Ladolfi, 2018), as well as a contemporary history essay titled “Italiane d’Argentina. Storia e memorie di un secolo d’emigrazione al femminile (1860-1960)” (Ananke, 2014), and a collection of short stories. She has contributed to several anthologies, including “Bestie. Femminile animale” and “Confine donna: poesie e storie di emigrazione” (Vita Activa Nuova, 2023 and 2022), as a co-author and editor, respectively; “Maternità marina” (Terra d’ulivi, 2020), where she served as editor and photographer; and “Italia Argentina ida y vuelta: incontri poetici” (Versante Ripido/La Recherche, 2017), a collection dedicated to Argentine poetry, for which she translated the texts into Italian. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Serbian, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, and Turkish.
Brenda Porster, poet and translator, was born in the U.S., and studied there before coming to Italy, where she has lived and worked most of her life. Her poetry, in both English and Italian, has been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies both in Italy and abroad. Specialized in literary translation, her translations of contemporary Italian poets appear in important journals in various English-language countries. Recently, her bilingual poetry collection, A Litte Girl’s Bestiary was published by Effigi ed., Italy.
