was published in Modern Literature.
***
At lunch I don’t feel hungry,
but write straight through.
I barely hear Bologna and the wind,
I barely feel Italy.
Solemnly, I sit between
the margins of my notebook,
I blindly conduct the wine scene,
replaying your gentlewoman’s
and noble manners,
your fingers are orchestrating the wine bottle
and my impatience.
A scent of Sangiovese rises from within my memory:
I feel your being and your security,
your jazz gestures
are too vivid,
your palms answer the accents
of the piano that stands inside my hell.
Your voice wraps around my mouth,
where it melts upon my tongue,
sentences escape my lips,
my hands do their play
over a napkin ring.
I feel us moving into a curtain,
invisible even to us,
and , certainly, to others,
probably, nothing significant has happened,
it might have been just our rhythms
rehearsing something
irrythmical and unimportant.
My first impression of you – a close-up-
the bony Egon Gilles’ shoulders,
fingers for rings
but are without them,
the one who goes under the rain
without an umbrella,
under the sun – without a parasol.
My neck does rounds
following your maritime pine silhouette,
your shirt and jeans and me
like silk
flow
like a liquid
down your body,
all of my being is the gloves
covering your music fingers –
without the rings,
the telephone rings and brings
all:
me, the city of Bologna,
the porticos, the noise of students
– back.
The margins of my notebook are gone.
My hat is flying off
across the lunch tables,
when a hologram of you
comes serenely,
with all the noble manners,
your fingers
sink into my hair,
then
in a second
they put back my hat on
and disappear.
