The Bangs
by Eugenio Montale
Don’t let your hand brush back
the bang of hair that veils
your cherub brow. It too speaks
of you; on my road, it’s my whole horizon,
my only light, it and the jades
circling your wrist; the curtain your dispensations
spread in the tumult of sleep; the wing on which you move
unharmed, transmigratory Artemis
among the wars of the stillborn. And if, now,
the background blooms with airy down, it’s you, suddenly
descending, you’re there to marble it, your restless brow
fuses with the dawn, darkens it.
