I was walking in Puglia,
I found myself almost lost, uncertain,
the sandy woods full of violets and nightshade,
I came to a house half-cave, I walked through
an open door between olive and fig trees
in a village where they still speak Greek.
I saw three large women dressed in black and silver,
silver threads from distaff to spindle.
There was no food on the shelves
except, I believe, honey and fragoline di Nemi.
Beyond the orchards I heard crowds weeping
in temples, waterwheels, slave songs, blessings,
curses, battle cries, like flocks passing overhead.
The three were not persons, still they were ladies—
one wore a necklace, a live blind snake,
no, the necklace was a string of eyes
sometimes blue, sometimes green.
I have it, three sisters, personifications.
I heard their names in voices that first echoed,
then groans and winks, bruised agony.
I wondered, “can I ask questions?”
I knew if they answered I would never get home again.
I asked, “how long have I got?”
Nona said, “nine days after your life began,
the time of your death was determined by me.
I gave you two months,
then because your mother prayed to Ocean
in the Rockaways, Zeus said,
“Give him a sweet death, in sugarcane bull rushes.”
There was snow on the ground, and fire.
The snow did not melt, changed color.
I’ve seen blood on snow, but the red
seemed more August sunset. Then I asked,
“Fates, make me a sweater
of many-colored threads that Achilles
might choose rather than a sword.” I came to the point:
“Name the day, the time, the place.”
They said, “a Saturday night after we’ve finished
your turtleneck sweater, longer than the life
of a turtle—if you don’t fall first.”
I saw a thread made of lightning
struck from spindle to sun to moon.
I kissed Morta, whose scissors were not mortal,
too large for simple thread, smoky,
useful in Carthaginian peace—with a single closing
they slaughtered herds of goats and wildebeests,
sheared flocks of sheep grazing on the moor.
In the marketplace I saw an actor, a tragedian
playing Tiresias as man and woman.
When he spoke, an eagle left his roost:
“poets are masculine, poetry is feminine,
the poem the child.”
I kissed the Three Fates goodbye.
They used their rough tongues, I thought my thoughts.
Informed by all occasions,
a life full of despites,
I’ll have one last love affaire.
I’ll die an upstart.
Before the Fates I listen to Boris Godunov,
his dying words “I am still Tsar.”