Absinthe #16: Gastão Cruz

"Breath"

                         Mas il mio dio se ne va in bicicletta

The boys of whom Sandro Penna speaks

are already dead or old and no longer flee

on bicycles that were the image

of desire in the days of summer

with their living wheels swift spokes

moving toward the inaccessible

place where only the sullied

final breath of all summers

might reach their bodies, rare, mercurial


from Absinthe #16, translated by Alexis Levitin