You may say that between me and you
a world exists that no-one can see.
A world of children and schools
and of slices of bread and butter and enormous
cappuccinos.
Then there is a strip of sky and a road that is reflected in it
and allows you to walk.

And then there is this void which is not the sum of absences
nor anything which advances through subtraction.
But it's hardly complicated, you see.
(even if said this way
it may sound so).

And I?
I am not there
when you open your door and your dog runs to greet you with
the table the chairs and your husband who has the face of a kind man and yet

harbours abstract resentment.

Translation: 2017, Matilda Colarossi