This article analyzes the function of deixis in the poetry of the 20th century Italian, Eugenio Montale, in particular, his "In limine." The main objective is to show how deixis is involved in the dynamic relationship between text and reader. A constant problem in Montale's texts is that of a disharmony felt by the poetic voice with the spatio-temporal dimensions in which the reader is placed, both existentially and historically, and that are felt as obstacles preventing the passage into new dimensions. The traditional concepts of space and time lose their claustrophobic significance. A cline of contexts of situation is created by poetic discourse, from that where the readers are invisible eavesdroppers, overhearing a conversation between others to that in which "the reader[s] can [...] place themselves within the deictic centre" (Semino 1992; 137ff) by adopting an appropriated distance toward the events that are being recounted. In Montale's "In limine," the readers are not only eavesdroppers or able to place themselves in the deictic center, but symbolically take an active part in the context of communication and become a necessary element for the functioning of the text. In this particular poem, the use of deixis is fundamental to aid in the understanding of what kind of relationship the speaking voice wants to establish with the reader-addressee. (Contains 26 references.) (Author/NAV)