We were sitting in front of each other:
The professor and the fascist,
Two friends caught up in each other.
He spoke to me, but far too quickly
Like a tarnished water bubble
All my promises burst.
We were in his homeland;
His wife was teasing my heart,
Night fell on Ventimiglia,
And in front of the closed shutters
A rumor from the city:
I had received the order to kill him.
The morning came when this friendship
Turned into a threat
Then my hand, without listening to him
Tore the curtain of ice
Of my friend’s words.
A flash of lightning crossed the dull air:
A discharge of accomplishment.
The blood in me did its scales,
The arrival of my wife, screaming
In her great fur coat
Was something overwhelming
An aftertaste of tearing.
Time has finally lowered
The livid eyelids of the day.
In our repaid interior,
I saw Mussolini fall
The young Italians are outside,
I join them, I am alive
But in Rome proud of its fate,
The blood flows from my past.