When, thanks to the virtues of wine,
I let go of solid memory and a certain pleasure
seems almost real to me
having secretly picked up a scent
in the john of a friend who uses that scent
and I’m about to park,
and I say to myself: “Go on, move, drive around the city,
you won’t find anything, but maybe
you’ll see a light on. You’re in love, aren’t you?
So act like someone in love! Don’t people in love
drive up and down streets like crazy?”
But then, because I found easy parking,
I stop, and while I’m stopped, comfortably stopped,
I imagine you, in the helpless delay of my love, as mine.
 

—Translated from the Italian by Mark Strand with Gini Alhadeff