Il Duce’s last speech

In Lorretto Square, Clara
my arms reach yours
for coins, denarians, dirt-dirty
customers peering at customers
perusing faces
I noticed vision’s rules baring
a print raised, a glass in a toast
to shoulder the nation
you wrapped me in a cloth
swaddling, I was an organ
for a moment, ancient, a menagerie
even though there were
hungry mouths around.

As I told Brutus, one cannot help but think
of yesterday’s savings
the villa you remember
squatty, mushroomed, made up of crowds
it’s geometry, a colonnade among colonnades
cast off and hung from trusses.

Yet your love held me.
It could be said I lived and died for ideas.
Together, in the voluminous crypt, in the planning room
finding always the softest chair
where there would be no wind
where one could almost forget
about the criminals' persistent burrowing
their ramshackle and shoddy tunnels
damnable, made up of two-by-fours
set by their oversized and gruesome hands.

My empire has no weakness, Clara
even though it is surrounded by air
because the mob knows my face, Clara
they know who I am.