Italy -Day 1 memories

3 planes brought us to Rome. We wandered to the train station, where it occurred to me my friend had been stabbed last year. This actually doesn't say as much about the sketchiness of the area as it does the mouthiness of my friend, but still, the thought crossed my mind... We had 3 hours to kill, so we left luggage and more exhausted travel companions in search of Italian Beer. We found it easily enough, and made our way giddily back through the tunnels of the train station to the platform where our friends waited. In classic American style, we proceeded to enjoy our tasty adult beverages with gusto and bravado, there in the open platform. The station workers wandered by, chattering to each other in Italian - I'm not sure whether they were rolling their eyes at our brazenness, or eyeing my multicolored hair (it's Easter! My pink-and-purple coiff isn't rebellious, it's festive...) but either way, they made several purposeful orbits around our haggard crew and went on their way without engaging us.
We kept drinking.

Once on the train, we disembarked again in Arezzo, charged with buying a couple of days worth of groceries for the rest of the group. With only 45 minutes to do so, we raced across the square to the supermercado! I adore going grocery shopping in foreign countries- the different arrangements, sizes, groupings and packaging of familiar goods fascinates me. Here, you can only buy tomatoes in shrink-wrapped packages of 6. The myriad varieties of prosciutto are overwhelming, and the pasta..... Oh, the pasta! However, there were only three varieties of cereal. There's a cartoonish, dreamlike quality about foreign supermarkets. Thankfully the money is a little cartoonish as well, so I have no idea what it all cost.

After racing back across to the train station, we shuffled across 4 train platforms and hauled everyone's 50lb bags up the narrow stairs onto the train, we settled into a few seats and waited for the train to depart.
And waited...
And waited.
And a lovely Italian woman leaned over to us and said in a nice accent: "You do know that this train doesn't go to Bucine, don't you?" We all did a double-take of eachother as our brains slowly but collectively registered the sign outside this train that said "7:20" and then the sign outside the next train that said "7:05" and then our watches that said "7:03"... and bolted for the door. We scrambled to unload all of our exhausted bodies, 50lb bags and copious amounts of expensive Italian cartoon groceries and re-load all of the above onto the next train over. We flopped into new seats just as the train doors closed.

And so here I am: sitting in the foyer of an 18th century, 5-story 'villa' (mansion by any american standards). These three tall doors open into a cool Tuscan breeze heavy with old grapes, crumbling brick, fresh bread and laughter. I sit on this couch, thinking: it really, truly doesn't get any better than this.

Italy - Day 1

Italia.
Cigarette-smoking trains huff in their station slots
Drying clothes, trousers and dresses wave at us from their perches on lanai railings
I don't know the Italian word for lanai
Or any other words, for that matter
But I know that this crying child breathes tears in the same language
As every other child on earth.
That this bathroom, with it's frosted-glass, one euro entrance,
Is out of toilet paper, too.
Just like the ones in Seattle and Chicago.

Buildings hoary with TV antennae
And the praying mantis legs of power lines above us
We drift through an insect world, all squeaks and rumbles
Chewing at something, anything, everything.

I ate a cheese and bread breakfast over tulip fields in the Netherlands
And even now, gliding down a steel rail through Rome,
Six colors of spray paint on a tagged wall through a window in my left,
And centuries-old ruin of brick and moss on my right,
Even now, my world,
It grow smaller
And brighter
And closer to home.

What dreams.

I raced the moon further than I intended to go.
We both ran as fast as we could
Toward the horizon
Dodging clouds and rocks
Rivers and lakes and waterfalls of promise
A wink and a challenge and we were off
I knew she would win, but I ran just the same.
Out farther than I thought I could.
And when I stopped, and looked back
I suddenly couldn't see where I had come from.
All the water and stone I had passed was gone
In its place, a wide desert.
And so I sat there, and let the moon fly by me.
Until the sun came up, and swallowed us all in its light.

Nightshift hangover.

Fix my clumsy gate so I can close it.

Want to go home, but don't know which way to turn.

Wonder if you'll read this.

I drove by, just to torture myself.

Squinting into the too-bright morning

Dying shadows of a too-dark night

Left that piece of chewed-up heart on the doorstep again

To be eaten again by the eagles and worms.

Night after night it grows in between the cracks again

And I leave it out to wither

Day after day after.

Squint into the too-bright morning

Breathe in her dewy flesh

I wander tired circles around a stirring city

All beeping and red lights.

I flutter and stumble to my little roost.

The sidewalk all but pushes me through the door

To be done with my whinging.

Labor.

A Bangladeshi woman sighs a stone into her lap
Wave after wave of fear breaking across her brow.
Her gatekeeper husband
Stands at arms before her
Carefully worded cage.
She doesn't make eye contact
But she doesn't need to.
Her rigid body howls all the words she could ever use to say
"I hurt." "I fear."
Words blind to culture or language or custom.
We fold her in our soothing whispers
Rock her with gentle hurried whisking about.
"We know."
The clock ticks it's disdain and doesn't miss a step.
Our hands fly to dab compassion at her wet cheeks
Sopping up her tears before they drown us all.

Swept up.

Eyes wild, drawn sky-fire bright in the wilderness between

You and me.

Tick-tock to-and-fro

In this moment there's a quickstep left

I watch your pupils dance here and there

I'm swept up in the motion.

A student of sweet Desire.

It's a vast desert, here.

Lit with the last tendril vines of dreaming sleep.

Held captive in your gaze, there's a whole journey

A sun and moon and yawning horizon on the water

Children skip, then grow old and weary

Flowers explode in a whirling field of green and shimmering summer gold.

A whole age passes through my view before

I finally take a breath,

A sidle slide right back into this room, this restaurant

This reality of you and I and dinner.

Forget-Me-Not

Your orange-squeeze
Smash-grin faces shine at me from a box
And I smell sherbet, mint-chip and
Sticky ice-cream summers.
Chewy candy springtime
Hats on your bouncing little heads.
I feel a pang of concern for the icy night tonight.
But I walk on past, thankful for this moment
This memory.