My father cuts hair at Cinema Paradiso.
I see him in barbershop mirrors
Like time is repeated on eternity’s reel.
My cousin owns a purgatorial liquor store.
As it was on earth, wine and rapture.
As it will be at rebirth, wine and rapture.
My grandfather shivers like a boy
Even though he’s crossing a lava pit:
Empedocles between love and the void.
My aunt knits ground snail covers
Fit for the gardens of an earthly nirvana
And cradles of dead, infant, elder brothers.
My mother is like a Greek statue
Who gave birth to music in stone,
The triumph of death in the mirror of bone.
Salvatore Ala 