Allison Grimaldi Donahue

november splendor 

there is only a certain kind of life

so we go rushing into cold waters

go brushing up against the hot brim

knowing very particular suffering

so small to be negligible happening 

all around can also be neither

small nor negligible for everyone

there is only a certain kind of life

in its own specificities and particularities

a certain kind of life made of its 

own mistakes and monolingualisms 

its own thieveries and generosities 

its own gettings up and its own goings to sleep

november splendor made

of a downpour and a party

of a loss of appetite 

at the prospect

of devouring you whole

so many infinite wholes

each discrete and particular 

in their completeness

november splendor that ought

to make the days shorter

but they feel like

just one day

going on forever

and the sun tangibly

further and further from my hands

there is only a certain kind of life

it can be made of boiled vegetables

waking before dawn

a mole at the center of yr back

it can be made of daily boredoms 

and heartbreaks which if yr lucky

are also boredoms

something burning might look soft

something golden might be a trick of the eye

now there is this knowledge

now we have to live with it

Allison Grimaldi Donahue (1984, Middletown, Conn. USA) works in text and performance exploring modes in which language, sound, and text can move between individual and collective experience. She often employs participatory writing methods to build improvised communities of writers and translators. She is the author of Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2016) and the co-author of On Endings (Delere Press, 2019). She is translator of Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait (Divided, 2021). She lives in Bologna, Italy.