Mrs. Donna spoke, saying it was all very clear.
In the long month of Maggio, Louise would be jailed
in a match that one might say was morbid—
as in attachment to one who would give not a fig
for the right to be near.
She wrote down a date
with an eight at the end. This, she said, means the end
will occur at a seaside resort, a respectable spa
where one eats in one’s robe and takes side-by-side baths
in beds made of ready-mixed mud.
She said Louise should then proceed, designless
and dissident, to a place where unlikely glitter would drift
like snow in the May of a previous year. That’s memory,
my dear, she said softly.
Listen, Louise told her, he gave me a pill,
saying, With this you’ll taste of divinity. With this,
you’ll be easy to love. He said, Lie down, and I did.