Messenger
 
4.10 a.m. I'm not looking for someone awake,
just saw you on line, don't really know you. We met,
I found you cold. My wife tells me you are warm, kind;
maybe it was me, full of himself, il poeta,
the concert. Signed a lot of books that night in
late sun and beauty of small Italian town.
Now you, me, are both awake, afraid of the unknown.
Guns and terrorist belong somewhere else;
soldiers defend us, us against them.
But this. We lie separate in our beds in the dark, waiting.
The air we breathe may be deadly.
For me. For you. For those we love.
There is no reply. Are you the next victim?
 
(For Daria)
March 2020

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As well as reviewing for Welsh Connections, John Eliot has published four collections of poetry with Mosaïque Press: Ssh!, Don’t Go, Turn on the Dark, and Canzoni del Venerdì Sera, a translation of his work into Italian. John is now poetry editor for Mosaïque Press and with Italian and Romanian universities is editing translation anthologies.

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