Two poems

Photo by Raymond Kotewicz on Unsplash

By Valentina Fulginiti

And that is if we are lucky

A shopping cart will do, loose wheels

on rusty hinges, an IKEA tarp tossed

over dubious Lares. Home is a memory

of something that once called shelter. 

The lucky ones are squatting their own

property, collection notices taped all over

the front door, a vile stench pouring out

of a puckered backyard. Nevertheless, he is.

And he is drunk with the happiness of someone

 who never expected to make it this far in life:

it’s our future he drives, in a slow and meandering

kind of way, this decrepit hoarder unburdening himself.

Crotch and pits no longer have a scent if wells

stopped pumping water years ago, and a rag

is only a rag if you can make new fabric

out of somewhere. And our future is spindly,

with a greyed-out smile and idle hands and

helplessness all cobbled together, and a whiff

of rotten moisture up our nostrils, and

seasoned mold calcified in endless lichens:

for this future belongs to nobody and chief

amongst them the nobodies who saw it

coming, between the torn fabrics of their

daydreams, as they all marched, arm in arm,

into the bar of our shared unhappiness. 

Nine more houses collapse in Buxton, NC

What we didn’t know

at the time: the ocean

had already begun

to evaporate, filtered

in a suspended cloud,

inverted like the quiet

brewing of a storm.

A skittering crab

imparts a lesson

in male fragility.

Not yet hardened,

his shell jiggly with laughter,

he scavenges a room

in someone else’s

discards.

Behind our backs,

forever homes

anchor their stilts

to a palimpsest

of fishbones.

Death has never been

more palatable.

The future belongs

to those who don’t

have bones.

Valentina Fulginiti is a bilingual writer, publishing both in Italian and English. Valentina has published one novel, Nessuna di queste vite mi appartiene (ExCogita, Milan, 2025) and poetry in journals such as The Sacramento Literary Review, Ovunque Siamo, Sky Island Journal, and others. Additionally, Valentina is a reader of poetry for Wildscape Literary Journal. Bilingualism and biculturalism are at the forefront of her expressive journey.