Roberto Salvador Cenciarelli
And we are walking hand in hand by the river now.
I occasionally move my arms over his shoulders as
he slides his behind my back. We keep discovering
pieces of clothing, new bones. It rained and then
the sun came out. I wanted to tell you something
like I am carrying an umbrella under my cloak but
I was afraid to lift it, in case it’d been switched again
for a blade. As much as these notes, we are resisting
resolution. This is the myth. In my mind there are
three Asterions: the one I fall in love with, the one
I write about and the one I need to kill, but which one
is which? The river half painted in sun, the other half
drenched in some idea of water. Asterion smiles. I
take a photograph. Children on bikes with helmets
pass by looking exactly like the children we will
never have together. I don’t recall when I decided
I was going to be Theseus. Nobody does, Asterion.
Roberto Salvador Cenciarelli is an Italian poet of Chilean origins based in London. He won the Verve Poetry Competition 2025 and the Pat Kavanagh Prize 2025. His work was shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize 2024 and appeared in Propel, Seaford Review, Berlin Lit, Oblique House and fourteen poems.
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