When her father stabbed her mother,
he was so lost and so drunk,
that he tried to bury her in the kitchen,
and—hear this—they lived on a forth floor.

At the Savoy² Alvite told me.
Those were times when Ernie Loquasto³
reigned liked an illiterate dandy
over whores, gambling and heroin.

She had, you know, what those women have:
instead of lips
they offer you a bathtub's suction
and they turn beds into puddles.

There’s people that are born in silk sheets
and others—what d’you expect—are born to be rags.

She walked differently from them all,
and one never knew if her steps
were memories of old beatings
or the devil moved her ass.

She—let me tell you—confided in me one night
that her only ambition—why deny it?—
was that when that time arrived,
the coffin—damn it—would be lined.

Of men she never spoke.
Men had never given her anything,
not counting a thousand beatings and a kiss or two,
that tasted of fillings and tobacco.

There’s people that are born in silk sheets,
and others—what d’you expect—are born to be rags.

I met her when she was,
not even the shadow of herself, and her hugs
smelled of dingy motel rooms,
and death looked for shortcuts to her.

Alvite told me one night,
in an alley, so unfrequented
that—I swear—there weren’t even rats.
they found her body, torn apart.

She had—they say—the very same knife wounds,
that her father had cut into her mother.
There’s people that are born in silk sheets,
and others—what d’you expect—are born to be rags.

She didn’t even get—damn it—
that satin-lined coffin.
Her body stayed in the mortuary,
for scientific study, my man.

There’s people that are born in silk sheets,
and others—what d’you expect—are born to be rags.