Joseph Brodsky

In Italy



I, too, once lived in a city whose cornices used to court
clouds with statues, and where a local penseur, with his shrill "Pervert!
Pervert!" and the trembling goatee, was mopping
avenues; and an infinite quay was rendering life myopic.

These days evening sun still blinds the tenements' domino.
But those who have loved me more than themselves are no
longer alive.  The bloodhounds, having lost their quarry,
with vengeance devour the leftovers - herein their very

strong resemblance to memory, to the fate of all things.  The sun
sets.  Faraway voices, exclamations like "Scum!
Leave me alone!" - in a foreign tongue, but it stands to reason.
And the world's best lagoon with its golden pigeon

coop gleams sharply enough to make the pupil run.
At the point where one can't be loved any longer, one,
resentful of swimming against the current and too perceptive
of its strength, hides himself in perspective.