Translated from the Italian by Patrick Williamson 

Image used for representation.

From Obstacles and Handholds 

The coming of darkness
between water and stone and
the wave, a game of volumes
where the moment overflows. 

Knots of fish boats high and dry
in the lap of the sandy shore
and the bite of salt
that flays. 

*

The shells remain
as altars to the fallen
of all drifts. 

The echo of the mute lusters
is silent beyond evil

branding us. 

*

We come from far away
for something that was already there
and returned in the spasms
of heated pauses. 

Pomace and salty smells
eddy between the shutters. 

The love that splits the road
sticking out from below
with summer 

scattering. 

*

On the oleander knoll
evening creeps into one’s bones
a rough desire
to drag your veins. 

Hungry for your spaces
pleasure takes shape
and dilates the lament
for something not there. 

Start again then
between caresses
make us accomplices once again
in the tacit prelude to awakening. 

*

Darkness creeps up on us
and swallows up the fag ends
quickly, the slightness of certainties,
the crashing of the sea opposite. 

We contemplate the world asleep
to get breath back
from our dead, to resist 

with others 

while this living here darkens
and tips over. 

Also, read four Romanian poems by Eliza Macadan, translated into English by Iuliana Pittman, and published in The Antonym:

Four Romanian Poems— Eliza Macadan