We’re Refugees Who Found Love Searching for Atlantis

Editor’s Note: This poem, written originally in English, appeared in Italian in Numinose Lapidi translated by Marco Raimondo

The ocean is a vessel cast in the heat of the stars
We walked there in the twilight and sang skysongs
Our bodies were translucent and full of darkness
How we carried our homeland in our bones

We walked there in the twilight and sang skysongs
The molten gold we sucked from the statues burned
How we carried our homeland in our bones
What if the floating city is just a dream?

The molten gold we sucked from the statues burned
We tied our boats to the edge of the moon 
What if the floating city is just a dream?
I liked how you held me close and smiled

We tied our boats to the edge of the moon 
Our bodies were translucent and full of darkness
I liked how you held me close and smiled
The ocean is a vessel cast in the heat of the stars

Siamo profughi che hanno trovato l’amore ricercando Atlantide

L’oceano è un vaso forgiato nel calore delle stelle
Vi siamo giunti al crepuscolo e intonato astrocanti
I nostri corpi ormai traslucidi traboccavano oscurità
Custodendo la terra natia nelle nostre ossa

Vi siamo giunti al crepuscolo e intonato astrocanti
L’oro fuso che estraemmo dalle statue bruciava
Custodendo la terra natia nelle nostre ossa
E se la città sospesa fosse soltanto un sogno?

L’oro fuso che estraemmo dalle statue bruciava
Abbiamo ormeggiato le nostre navi all’estremità della luna
E se la città sospesa fosse soltanto un sogno?
Mi piaceva come mi stringevi a te sorridendo

Abbiamo ormeggiato le nostre navi all’estremità della luna
I nostri corpi ormai traslucidi traboccavano oscurità
Mi piaceva come mi stringevi a te sorridendo
L’oceano è un vaso forgiato nel calore delle stelle

Holly Lyn Walrath

Holly Lyn Walrath’s poetry and short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Liminality, and Analog. She is the author of Glimmerglass Girl (Finishing Line Press, 2018), winner of the Elgin Award for best speculative chapbook, Numinose Lapidi, a chapbook in Italian (Kipple Press, 2020), and The Smallest of Bones (CLASH Books, 2021). She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. You can find her canoeing the bayou in Houston, Texas, on Twitter @HollyLynWalrath, or at hlwalrath.com.

Marco Raimondo

Marco Raimondo was born in 1988 in the suburbs of Turin, northern Italy.
He still lives in his hometown and his life is rather anonymous, but it is characterized by a serious physical disability which has affected his possibilities of completing his university studies that he tried in Italian Modern-contemporary Literature first and then in Bio-medical Engineering. He continues to study independently, deepening the many subjects he is interested in, particularly in Linguistics, History of Religion and Poetry that he also writes and were discovered by the Italian editor Kipple Officina Libraria. He has translated two poetry collection for Kipple Officina Libraria, a collection of poems by three decadent writers and “Numinose Lapidi” of Holly Lyn Walrath.