“Dante’s Tongue”

The poet John Ciardi described translating 

Dante’s Inferno from Italian to English

as playing a tune meant for the piano

on a violin.

Understanding usually means sacrificing something.

Understand that HRT did nothing for my voice. 

The chemicals that curved the basin of my body violin-deep

and cured the catgut ache in my stomach into strings

and a long silent song did nothing to un-piano the tune.

They did nothing to translate the Italian

and make me sound like a new tongue.

No matter how hard I pinch the stubborn reed of my throat.

No matter how many times I whisper, like a prayer, the exercises

Heat from fire. Fire from heat. 

No matter how I Psycho and Hitchcock

and crash the strings,

I still sound like Norman.

I am still called “Sir” over the phone,

still stopped at the gates with my runaway tongue,

still all black and white stones down my throat.

The blooming cello of my hips does nothing

about the parade of hammers 

that clang for the Fatherland.

I am still a Dante stuck out of Florence

like a living contrapasso

made to scream 

for the sin of telling the truth with my skin,

for covering with soft hands

the braying alphabet of my birth.

I am trying to be music

to speak like a poem

with nothing lost in translation.

But I know what I sound like

playing piano with strings,

and it sounds like John Ciardi

sweating over the manuscript.

Like Dante second-hand.

I know what it sounds like.

It sounds like hell in a symphony hall,

like a mad poet

no one understands.