(Inventory of a) Once and Still Roman

Almost a year since,
and tonight I’m taking inventory.

I almost smelled the lavender stand

on the way back to our apartment,

the old man who looked fierce

enough to have escaped prison,

who sold the tender, purple silk bags

for 3E each, 2 for 5E.

In Rome, I measured mornings

in street crossings,

the beggar tipping out his hat

on the bridge, the Tiber water

lingering between the quilt-patch

buildings, and the street-line stitches.

In Rome, the poor held
our eyes like steady pools,
so we could see our own
reflection.
Or they bent, head down,
arms cupped, out
like a crucifix

while we watched stiletto
heels striking cobblestone.

Mornings in café freddo, afternoons

in gelato scoops,

(becoming fluent in gelato-speak,
lured into nutella-infatuation.)

Late mornings in sweat,

afternoons in sweat,

showers (feet minimum, cold-med heat,

never hot water),

waking from a siesta in sweat,

evening, walking home, sweat.

Evening, out, ease.

Night: the clatter

of dishes, river of voices,

and bell-chimes of laughter

below our window

as we chased sleep.

Dragging our mattresses
out under the living room AC,
relief.

~

Every city has a birth,

a life,

a death,

I learned.

I measured Rome in years: hundreds,

thousands (as well as any American can).

And days: days passed, days left,

blog days, siesta days, longing for home

moments, hours.

Always a solid eight hours between us—

family, friends,

you,

your morning

or my yesterday.

The way we talked,

words full as a plate of pasta and red wine,

but the slightest—

was it hesitation?

lingered in my mouth,

impossible to trace, as if stained on my fork

before the meal arrived.

It is not the hours that change us

but the places that we grow apart in.

~

Roman time still stretches on today,

even here in Seattle.

Seattle, my home, though sometimes

if one could have a love affair with a city,

I might be tempted

to take Rome in,

undercover,

just for a day.

Rome would smoke his cigar

and tell me about the panino

and bus protests, the heat, and how at night

the Colosseum still fills with its ghosts.

Then Rome would sing

me a song I heard once in a

ristorante, by a man wiping

display windows,

whose deep voice sauntered

for the sake of singing,

or for the afternoon break,

or for living itself.

I practice Rome, still,

by crossing sidewalks illegally

(though it is still best done

with friends, in sandals, in

fear of Vespas).

And sometimes, if given the option,

I’ll take my coffee strong in a

small, porcelain tea cup (mug).

(European size).

~

Every city has

a birth,

a life,

a death.

So goes the saying.

I’ve built my bridges

and pillars via pen—

journals since 1^st grade.

Sometimes, I wonder,

what will happen with them?

Will they become their own Forum?
Will tourists of some kind

sweep in and purge,

pointing with cameras

and sticky fingers,

or will these written memories

be tucked away

like the sacred dead under church

floors, in cemeteries

below

cemetery?

Every city has a birth,

a life,

a death.

Rome teaches this most.

Here, we like our hours

clean and sharpened to the minute.

But

for all our archiving

at the end of the day,

our clock hands

still twist toward Roman dust.

~

Puddles

I’m sapped of wonder today.

A twenty-two year old professional

list maker, who has shaved

down the world into hand held

ambitions: jobs to apply for,

rent to pay, people to see.

My chest is filled with hinges

and buckles, and my mind

needs a serious bubble bath.

Sam, the one year old I nanny

smacks his chubby palm into a mud puddle.

He looks back at me with a brown-eyed grin,

then back at his hand’s wetness,

and lets out a seagull shriek

of delight.

Forget about repopulation.

The older generations would shrivel away

from their urgent ambitions

long before old age,

were it not for children.

Home

Home,

a word we built,

clay in our child hands

destined for glossy oven birth.

Home became

a word that flutters,

a wanderer without anchors,

defiant sails braced for storm thrusts,

stained, and needing to be polished again,

reborn.

But back to home

at the beginning.

*

If my child walls

had a color, they would be

Pueblo red, mud soft, brick strong.

If memory has a color, that’s it.

I once believed in jackal-fears and viper

lighting storms, skeleton grins

and spider nightmares.

But the monsters never came.

Not near my mother’s smell,

her squeaky kiss, the clean sheets.

Not near Dad’s heavy feet upstairs,

his whistle-hum over the coffee

machine, sister’s sparkling eyes

as she flushes my jelly sandals

in the toilet.

These moments

still hum like an old cat on my lap,

worthy of affection.

*

Then I saw how Home

must grow into mosaic,

how Time cracks and breaks it,

how we must mold the

old pieces into soft, fresh clay.

A constant art.

Family vacations through mountain

passes, rain spinning against my window,

listening to our murmurs

whip away in time,

holding our words in my

mind on replay.

Maybe that is why I write.

To hold the pieces long after they’ve

crumbled. To remember

their magic.

*

But sometimes for too long

I consider the cracks:

A song on the radio

reminding me of an old friend.

How I hold you, love,

like water.

Rome, already deteriorating

two times faster

in my mind

since last summer.

Arguments like bee stings,

swollen days after.

Praying for reconciliation.

As a child, burying a mole.

Its soft, dark eyes closed

because it dug too many mansions.

Aching to be in our apartment

in Rome, just for a moment

to feel again the pressing heat,

to see white shirts fluttering

on a neighbor’s clothesline.

*

But when I consider

all this too deeply,

I forget to work in new clay.

While I try to rest in the words

and the anchors of the people I love

my mind still fights to fly

past stars, through deep waters.

I could build so many Babels

if my flesh and bones

didn’t hold me so tightly.

But even Superman must have felt

empty. Alone,

that is the price of flight.

See me with all my cracks,

I’m too old now for child walls.

But always young enough

to warm my hands at the

hearth of the ones I love,

between my snow journeys

for new walls.

That is when I taste it.

*

When I taste this one Home

I have still to enter.

Most days, it seems more

mirage than solid,

an eternal desert crawl away.

But it waits,

confident,

oven-baked to glossy perfection,

Pueblo red, mud soft, brick strong.

The final rebirth.

I taste it sometimes:

Steady, like my feet

anchoring under

sun-filled maple trees.

The sweet ache of

acceptance,

a kiss on a mud-stained

cheek, a tight hug from the

friend who once slipped away

like water.

In these moments

at the well

of human dignity,

the mirage stiffens

into reality.

I ache for this

honey wine completion.

No more cracks, no more new clay,

Just enough.