Come morning, a sliver
of cold slipped through
a crack in the window.
The slow creeping ghost,
memory, nostalgia, even
crimson shades of regret
sifted through the leaves
and tunneled under the doorway;
I awoke with a shatter
to a turgid languor.
I lay in the swollen air, trying
to hide from and ignore
the shadows of seasons past,
got up hoping coffee would help,
and I felt around my neck that ring
that holds my cross to its chain.
You weighed more heavily
than you did in September.
Those words
dripping with meaning,
yet starved of significance,
are a mirage to a foreign
ear. Honey-laden voices
sit behind glass too hard
to crack. It could be poetry,
it could be vulgarity, slander,
or plain chit-chat; it’s hard
to tell what’s behind that
thick concrete wall, studded
with coils of barbed wire
and screaming in silence.
Far off cornered around
this too-big world, I shake
and shiver under a pile
of blankets. Abstracted
and vaporous, my mother’s
hand rests on my forehead.
The kettle whistles, a hot bath
fills and steams, and my soft
warm bed is too far away
on this lonely distant night.
My stomach bites, my skin
tremors, and home is far
away, far too far away tonight.
Crammed with two dozen
people into a converted van,
we slowly bumped our way
towards remote alpine air.
The hills swelled around
our caravan, an island
of sound in a deserted silence;
we plod away, leaving behind
much more than the chattering
city, its lights, creaks, and fumes.
I was unwinding a tangled string,
a nested web that gradually dissolved
into rolling hills, clear air, and a simple
meal shared among our company
in the Omphalos of Tsakartsvelo.
Something new crept inside
of me as we clambered
back into our converted van.
These are the elements of the Roman spirit.
Acqua Regina, Queen of Water,
your fountains flow from mountain
springs, cool and clean. Down
the aqueducts and spread throughout
the streets, from imposing sculptural
waterworks to the child drinking
from the humble nasone through
cupped hands, water is the first.
Vino rosso, vino bianca, prosecco,
lambrusco, and even the spritz,
enchanting liquors are as ubiquitous
as a basket of bread. A sign hangs
in one of your trattorias: “A meal
without wine is call breakfast.”
Wine is the second.
Your icon soaked the ground
through for sport, filled your roots
like a chalice taken in communion.
The third is the heaviest, and it carves
a channel through the city
like a family’s laughter over dinner
fills the room. Blood is the third.
Vaporous shapes
play tempting translucency:
your partial reflection
against the scenery
out of the bus window.
All the while, thunder thunder
thundering bass:
the moon overhead, she suggested
“write about me,”
but still, if I wanted to,
what really could two
wayfaring strangers do?
The moon disappeared
behind a rain cloud,
reappeared then disappeared
again, this time into the sea,
gone in a flash. You left
just as fast as you came.
Late at night: dazed,
alone, beast-like and
gnashing rent the night
while echoing bass
rings in my ears.
Bowls of fresh pasta
come steaming out
to sidewalk tables
cradled in the shadow
of still-standing arches,
murmuring across centuries.
In darkness, a full composure,
surrounded by a crown of swollen
rocks, trees, and sloping crests,
The Perseids shot streaks
across the sky. The night was warm and
the new moon wore a cloak of shadow.
A few lights around the garden
lit up the scene, a handful of guests
putting hunger and thirst away, enjoying
poetry and song. Few stars above:
Mars alone gazed prominent
red over the cusp of the horizon.
Once the guitars’ strumming sank
to echoes in the humid night,
and the story was concluded
in a triumph–liberty!–the lights
receded at a footwise pace. My eyes
adjusted, gently sinking into the night,
and I heard the soft rush of water
against smoothed stones below
the bridge, and I cast my throat towards
that immense, open air: distant lights
and the occasional shot streaked
across the sky.
The crimson blood of the sun
coalesces onto heavy vines
into goblets of nectar,
full of sky, rain, and soil.
Plucked: then anointed with olive
and salt, slices of ripened blush
sings a solo sublime, though
we surely ought not refuse
a bit of bread and some soft cheese.