What I Leave Out When I Talk About Italy
I am staring
at boarded
walls in
an American
bar now that
I have turned
my back
on the past
year, a month
ago a distant
fog if not for
the photos
of mountains
and beaches
and the beef
in Bologna.
The thousands
I spent
was less
a subtraction
of my person
but instead
a lesson
in fire-
eating,
a teacher
that yanks
your hair
when you go
too deep
into the sea
in Amalfi
full of tourists'
feet and fish
that would
bite yours
off, and one
tried to. When
I carried
you to shore,
the scalding
black pebbles
under my feet
was its own act
of forgetting.
Justifying the Promotion
Maybe it is not that I am ruthless
but that I make a good
impression. Or usual delusion
means the snake is not me
who swallowed the egg,
but contentment.
Lizardry
patterns of perpetual
airways (throat rolling
Sisyphean lime)
green skin
could echo through
endless parties
of heart-clenching unworthy
jars of flour dabbed over
plush lips
wheezing into
another life
sunglasses and rhyme
blocking the path
forged signatures
on grocery checks
sustainable
in the lack
of
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