Tu mi vorresti come uno dei tuoi gatti, by Patrizia Cavalli

The original: Tu mi vorresti come uno dei tuoi gatti castrati e paralleli: dormono in fila infatti e fanno i gatti solo di nascosto quando non li vedi. Ma io non sarò mai castrata e parallela. Magari me ne vado, ma tutta di traverso e tutta intera.\ Patrizia Cavalli writes in a register that sounds, on first reading, like overheard conversation: colloquial, quick, often bitingly funny. But underneath the chatty surface there is almost always a strict metrical scaffolding — here, mostly endecasillabi — and a network of internal rhymes that keep everything tightly stitched together (gatti/infatti, nascosto/the implied vedi echoes, parallela/intera). The premise is a domestic argument compressed into six lines. The addressee — a lover, presumably — would prefer the poet to behave like one of their cats: castrated, parallel, sleeping in tidy rows, only being a cat (only being itself) in secret, when nobody is watching. It’s a wonderful image of the kind of partner who wants you neat and…