To Borges – Variation V

I committed the worst of all sins: not being complete.

Across the fields my race didn’t last long and will extinguish with my death

me being the sole prototype of a different form of existence

an unlikely genetic mutation between the gabriels and the lerners

I sinned because I did not finished the novel

I did not arrive on time     neither remember the tickling

of the ovation and perseverance from my mother’s throat.

I have not been a paisano but instead always a stranger

sentenced to die in another place    a weeping willow

gypsy trousers     Jewish look     last living specimen

commercial exponent of the lerners and the gabriels crowded together

in this solemn generation of betrayed revolutions.

I have not been a master

did not kill the man that was haunting me down from within

neither the one that hated me with a reason

I did not graduate    climbed the ladder     did not want to be a lieutenant

or rightful     or in a palace     not even own a title

the bells and red flags did not play for me the communist salute

and even if I was a sunflower     and a swirl    an amphibious man

even if I was made of grapes

I did not chose    never voted

I pretended to be pushed towards

and nobody saw the wink

nobody sees me inside now

no one knows that I am laughing.

Rome, July, 1997