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The collection gathers lyrical sequences and sonnets in a confessional voice that probes modern female identity, desire, and social performance. One extended autobiographical sequence composed of many thirteen-line terzine reads like a novel without plot, tracing appetite, flirtation, indifference, and the exhilaration of urban fashion and nightlife; other poems, including more compact sonnets, record earlier romantic suffering and youthful passions. The speaker juxtaposes classical female archetypes with a contemporary Parisian model to explore ambivalence toward love, liberty, and reputation, using vivid sensory detail, psychological introspection, and recurring images of gaze, costume, jealousy, and theatricalized seduction.
Troppo discreto. Amore non s'afferra
con timidezza trepida di gesti
ma con sagace strategia di guerra.
Quando ore ed ore mediti pretesti
a sfiorar con la tua mano la mia,
una pietà pensosa in me tu desti.
Più che languire di malinconia
o disperare di sconforto giova
spronar d'orgoglio l'anima restìa.
Ciascuna donna è come una via nuova
che alcun percorra in notte senza luna.
Molte sorprese il passegger vi trova,
ma le affronta affidato alla fortuna.