Davide Trame

Just Blood

It happens, opening a tin,
it’s just an instant and you cut
the tip of your forefinger,

                                             the sharp edge rips in
                                             and it’s at once a gash
                                             and your dark red soul spills.

                                                                       It was very ready just underneath,
                                                                       now it seems to escape so eagerly,
                                                                       flooding in rivulets from within,
                                                                       keen on staining the world
                                                                       expanding into any casual Beyond.

                                               it has happened so quickly,
                                               the sign maybe of how we pass,
                                               in a blink of an eye
                                               your astral body is
                                               smeared everywhere,
                                               table, chair, a trail on the stairs,

                                                                                                                    you sense the thin
                                                                                                                    precarious boundaries
                                                                                                                    of your being

                                      until you find a way to staunch at last
                                      what is after all just a tiny opening,
                                      maybe less than an inch of a chink.

                                      Touching it you feel the shine
                                      of your most hidden nakedness,
                                      your fundamental liquid nothingness
                                      over the bones.

By then you try to smile
at how it goes unsaid,
the fragility of life,
and feel glad enough
discovering you can still write,
although the plaster on your forefinger
softens the touch too much

and distances you from each key.
How easily the world can recede,
only the old lesson remains,
the only choice on this side:

                                      stay in silence, listen to the river within,
                                      to the closeness of its far cry.

Davide Trame is Italian teacher of English living in Venice. His poetry collection Make It Last was published in January by Lapwing Publications, Belfast.