The Lingering Wound • poems by Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena

One Winter Day in Bergamo

I met
an old man
who kept counting
the days
till spring begins
an open scroll
with its wine
and feasts
of orgies

but his face
like Van Gogh’s
before he pulled
the trigger

one morning
he saw a child
picking up a stone
instead of a coin
then throwing it
for no reason
at the marble fountain

its ripples
he told me
(with the wisdom
of the ancients)
is a sound
of the Reaper’s scythe

being sharpened