Una poesia di Laura Lamberti
Everything is enveloped in darkness.
The hopeful darkness, not the desperate one.
The darkness so intense that allows you to picture all the beautiful places you could go to,
and yet you don’t know if these are images that you have seen or rather the result of an association
process your brain has delved into, that brings together elements from countless other images,
melting them together softly.
And all throughout this imaginary panorama, the warm and raspy voice of the night seems
to be lulling you, humming jazzy tunes, begging you to stay in that state of half asleep, half wake
where the answers to questions you didn’t know you had, are found.
You lay there.
Soul to soul, skin to skin.
A sea of soft cotton, or maybe silk?
No, no it’s cotton, just the very best kind.
The sea is calm, and you just stay afloat.
When it gets too warm you turn around, and as you do, the fresh patches of cotton wash
over you, as if they knew you were looking for them. But you can’t stay floating too long because
a wave washes over you, embraces you, leading you softly to the bay.
And you lay there, curled on yourself, with your back towards the bay, the body of which
continues for kilometers and kilometers after the silhouette of your body has ended.
You lay there, on one side.
You are looking in the distance but your eyes are foggy.
You feel stiff. It’s cold. You need to move your leg.
You extend it back, towards the bay. Oh! It’s warm, and it envelops you in its warmth.
And still you lay there.
Soul to soul, skin to skin.
But there is nothing passive in this laying, it requires your complete attention, and it
awakens every inch of you.
You lay there, your head resting in the crest of the bay.
It’s almost touching your neck or maybe it does.
You can feel its breath on it. You wonder if what you are actually feeling is his attempt to
take in the perfume of your hair. You can feel his beard. It makes you shiver, and the wave pulls
you even closer to the bay.
It’s the oil that he likes, the one you bought in Egypt the day you went to the gardens; that’s
what makes your hair smell so good.
Was it the same day as the boat on the Nile?
No, no, it was the day of the ice cream that got you sick.
You lay there.
Soul to soul, skin to skin.
You lay there.
Half-awake half dormant, aware that you only have discovered half of this bay, only aware
of half of what it took to get there. Half-awake half dormant. Blurry. Indefinite. Shifting. Like you
two together.
You open your eyes.
You are not at bay.
You are as deep at sea as one can be.
You can’t see the sea from where you are now. You can’t even see the palm trees.
Only train tracks and skyscrapers outside the window.
You are not at bay.
You are at sea, and you wonder if you could have done anything more to stay ashore.
You lay there.
This time it actually is silk and yet you would trade it in a second for the vivid memory of
that cotton.
You lay there.
You feel stiff.
It’s cold.
You pull up the covers.
You lay there.
Soul to skin.
Laura Lamberti, napoletana di 23 anni, ha studiato scienze politiche, diritti umani e giornalismo fra Sciences Po e la Columbia University. A breve inizierà un tirocinio presso l’Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe a Vienna, nel dipartimento di libertà di stampa. L’interesse per la poesia è stato un naturale risultato dell’amore per l’arabo. La sua prima poesia, scritta in arabo e selezionata fra i pezzi vincitori di un concorso di poesia in lingue straniere presso la Columbia, è stata scritta in tributo a questo amore. Appassionata di Medio Oriente e Balcani, Laura studia arabo e bosniaco, parla francese, spagnolo, ed inglese, e quando pensa alla poesia pensa a Gerusalemme e Sarajevo, a Darwish ed Andrić.
