--- C E S A R E   P A V E S E

	translated by Susan Thomas

     Sluggish swallows
fly through the colorless dusk.
Sadder than this I will never be: only
a little more weary, in the final agony.

     It isn't just my cowardice:
those dying ones that let a death
rattle escape from their throats,
are they maybe cowards too?

     The frenzied swallows,
prisoners of the sky,
are driven crazy by sameness.

     Inside the roar of blood
my brain turns over
an atrocious desire for madness.