I have a recent translation of Antonia Pozzi’s “Giacere” up at Defunct Mag. I love this poem, and first came across it in Laurence Venuti’s edition of her poems, Breath (Wesleyan, 2001). But where Venuti’s versions slash down the page in jagged, irregular stanzas – perhaps suggesting a sense of vertigo – I have chosen a more sober arrangement, in keeping with the original.

Here in the lazy oblivion
of a backstroke
sun on my face
light breaking through eyelids
making the brain blush.
Tonight, in bed, the same posture
of exalted innocence
wide awake, drinking in
night's white eminence.

Read the poem next to the original at Defunct.