Julian Stannard
Ballo
Enzo has ducked down with the grass cutter.
Izio, the electrician, has gone Hawaiian.
Marilena, rich in houses, has beautiful hair.
The lady from Milan doesn’t like negri
but she likes the strange vacuum of August
and she believes in the power of prayer.
Susanna in Venice since ’68 -
her son is dancing with the thin blond girlfriend.
Sie sprechen Deutsch in piazza.
The old men are smoking like Turks
and always shouting, Pino is hawking his Olivetti.
No space for hiatus in dialect.
The blackshirt is gangly with cropped hair,
he is wearing braces with the faces of the Duce,
he is teaching his son how to tango.
My sad wife is ladling out sangria
and taking money for the ballo, ah the ballo... !
Clemé is spilling figs from her pockets.
And there’s Bruno the rabbit-catcher,
the barber, the olive-bottler,
the voyager, gerontion ball-breaker...
My wife is daunsinge with Izio
gliding round and round and round the ballo
I am watching his hand on her arse.
After the ballo we stack the chairs, tables
and take a car to the sea; we strip and swim.
And because it is dark we are laughing.
Page(s) 42-43
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