COPING
(In memory Cesare Pavese
 1908-1950)

Bouncing his leg
off the table
saying farewell
to his nerves
nibbling at his soul
to wish he were
at a year or century
earlier or later
having seen anger search
for him in his stress test
in signals and signs
weighing on his life
of literary exertion
scaling in different
directions of Italy
like a weather vane
under Turin's grey sky
for so many seasons
trying to forget a memory
of mountainside sorrows
in noiseless playgrounds
and college libraries
reading Dante and Virgil
expecting change
in an earthy twilight
or on the seashore
with promises unfulfilled
in love and punishment
from an arbitrary existence
yielding to a squeezed fate
of vigil and desertion.