For my friends Emanuele and Valentina. Sabbinirica.


Not every bad thing comes to harm you.
—Sicilian proverb

Gazing from the very toe of Italy,
where the monument
of Vittorio Emanuele III
sticks out like an overgrown nail,
Sicily at last reveals herself—
a bride in a matriarchal society,
and still she resists
taking off her veil.
The island is a window
no one cares to look out of,
but stealing a glance inside
is like unlocking your lover’s diary—
no, it’s like picking the lock
of her flat without permission—
knowing she won’t mind.
There are no secrets here,
only mysteries—
if you can simply imagine
theaters without backstages.
And neither are there plans or designs,
only dreams and ideas—
if you can just picture
conductors without rehearsal halls.
Best of all, there are no questions,
only curiosity and attraction—
if you can envision cooks
who have recipes but no teachers.
This is the land of directors
who let their actors be themselves.
This is the sea of dancers
who never follow their choreographers.
And still, I must ask:
How many feet
have trudged the black
streets of Catania paved
with the angry voice of Etna?
How many eyes in Ortygia
have witnessed time purloin
the rocks of Apollo’s Temple?
How many hands no longer
know the way marble was formed
inside Palermo's chiesa del Gesù?
And what else are my questions
besides parachutes
which never open
for those who must fall
from the cliffs of time?
If men could only
have compasses
to realize the direction
of their futile pursuits,
if women could just have
babies they had no
problem abandoning,
if children could simply
remember the world like old
people who never left
their places of birth,
I would know the shores
of your land have no meaning;
I would know the echoes
of your wheat fields are barren;
I would know the songs
your daughters and sons sing
weren’t passed down by their parents,
but in time the mountains have stood
like performers who never
got tired of bowing;
the waters still walked
like philosophers
who could find clarity
without seeking truth;
the winds kept on speaking your name
even when ships were forgetting your ports.
Sicily, what more can be said?
Like reading old books rescued from fires,
the only answers are questions.
Who planted this earth in the water?
And how did people’s roots
grow so long for them not to forget
how the ocean tastes?
All that separates you from Italy
is the distance on which a bridge
can be built but yet none exist—
and maybe it’s better this way.
Let your body be yours
and may it embrace all those
who embark in your arms.
But keep the steel hands
of humanity away,
for the metals and stones
that fashion connections
are precisely the matters
which also build cages and walls.
Let your land be a bazaar
to which every culture
can bring their spices and herbs—
let strangers be like friends
cut off by oceans,
who rarely speak to each
other yet have much in common;
let their flavors be mixed
in the most radiant way;
and still, never forget the hands
which take more than they give.
The way thirsty Bedouins
won’t renounce the deserts
which give them no water,
so I imagine no other
path but the sea leading to you.
Forgive the waves inside me,
which arrive like guests
bearing no gifts,
but recede like messengers
who’ve brought you good news.
Forgive the droughts in my ideas,
which catch you like good friends
who talk far too much,
but always initiate the farewell.
Forgive the gusts in my speech
which rush like thieves to your door,
but walk away like parents
who’ve given advice.
Forgive the avalanches in my depression,
which pull you down
like drowning children,
but release you like mountains
whose slopes are gentle.
Tell me how I can be with you
and still let you be free.
To respect your past
is to love you like a scholar;
to admire your future
is to worship you like a seducer.
What lover’s eyes
truly see in the present?
Like destroyed bridges
whose ends no longer meet,
either they wallow
in the mistakes of history
or become trapped
by the hereafter’s seduction.
As miners may forget how dark
the blue sky gets at night,
so I approached Messina’s shores.
Passing the golden Madonnina,
I didn’t hear the slightest echo
of my homeland’s calling;
gazing at the Virgin Mary’s Latin blessing,
still strange to me then,
I realized the importance
of keeping memories you’ve forgotten.
Why must the future be a graveyard
where promises are buried,
and why is the past a hospital
where only sick children are born?
Walking down Via Garibaldi,
I saw your Moreton Bay figs.
Like soldiers who aren’t afraid
to die for their country,
they stood like men afraid
of dying for nothing—
their branches yearned for the sky
and their roots tempted the underworld.
And while the ruins near Largo San Giacomo
were rigid like agnostics at a crossroad,
the grass around them bloomed
like fields no one had stepped on.
Still, could it be that neither
living nor dying matters
that much anymore?
Poverty is a diamond begging
to become a wedding ring;
wealth is the same diamond
selling its body on the street.
Every beggar asking for change
next to Messina Cathedral
revealed how slowly seconds
will move when even
the faithful won’t feed you.
Every penny given to God
showed me how quickly Sundays
can pass when there’s enough hell
in your pockets to bribe the watchmaker.
And yet, what else could I realize
standing next to your clock tower?
The stones rested like dead pharaohs
surrounded by servants
who could no longer serve them—
time moved like wealth
that couldn’t make them wealthy.
Having never been rich
nor been a beggar,
it was hard to appreciate
both the edifice’s opulence
and the bodily decay it was guiding us towards.
What else could I become
but a musician—
no, a luthier who can’t stand
the silence of a forest
in which the best woods
for his instruments grow?
What more could I do
besides stand there like a statue
history was bound to disown in the future?
At once, when the bells rang
in Piazza Duomo,
I forgot the definition
of an island.
The way some artists
in small villages
have already painted
every resident’s portrait,
I suddenly felt alone
when all faces became familiar.
Like places you’ve never been,
their anger and smiles
had strange contours and textures—
their glances were like rumors
about distant lands;
their bodies moved like fairytales
even children question,
and it was hard right then
to ignore the awareness
of death on every expression.
The sudden urge to leave
the island yet remain in Sicily
haunted me like a reality—
no, it was a nightmare
I didn’t want to wake up from.
Ecstasies of the past;
miseries of the future;
and always, always, always,
the present’s monotony
flying over me like the bluest
sky on the Winter Solstice;
as lovers who shun people
in favor of ideas,
I’ve already seen Etna
covered in snow—
although my eyes
haven’t witnessed it.
I’ve already sensed how cold
the Tyrrhenian Sea can get—
although my skin
hasn’t felt it.
From the steps
of Cefalù Cathedral,
I looked upon men and women
who were no different from me;
yet, they neither knew
who I was nor did they want to know;
it’s hard to describe the relief
which confined me right then—
every thought was an umbrella
in a future with no rain;
every smell was the red lipstick
worn by a woman long overdue for a kiss;
every sound was a wine glass
held by a man tired
of drinking alone;
every face was a portrait
drawn by bad artists;
every street was paved
by people who’d never traveled.
There was nothing else
I could do but weep without tears;
like hunters who feel guilty
when they kill to survive,
I took my heart out of its frame,
cut the empathy into six pieces,
and loaded it in a revolver—
my finger ready to fire
when the last ounce of air
ran out within me.
Yet, there are mysteries left
in the light of your mosaics—
they still blind the ones who
look at them long enough;
meanwhile the rotten abbey
overlooking the sea
is left to damnatio memoriae;
yet the past grows like weeds
in a garden where all plants
are thought sacred.
Likewise, the future dies
in the beds of unwanted plans,
always conceived in the absence
and presence of love.
Still, the sky is a place
where no one goes to sleep tired—
the white pillows you witness
have never once borne
the world’s weight;
no, it’s not true.
Looking out at the endless
water from Capo Marchiafava’s Bastion,
I still couldn’t escape the sense
of finality that biology
had planted inside me.
The mountains I beheld
were no different
than turtles hiding
in their shells—
even their summits
were crowns of disgraced kings.
While nature’s castles
could shield us forever
from its own storms,
they can only protect us
for so long as we live.
There’s no empathy
in the waves which bring
dead sailors back to the shore.
There’s no love in a storm
speeding up a ship’s return home.
Turning away from the depths
where life had emerged
but where I couldn’t survive,
your streets filled with tourists
suddenly called to me.
I’d grown tired of being
in a church where there was none—
my eyes had witnessed
so much of God’s water
they could cry at every funeral
and birth still to come.
Right then, it felt both natural
and wrong to believe
the world belonged to no one—
that like a bad dream leaving a corpse,
it both arrived from nowhere
but also came from a past
that’s ceased to exist.
Like a priest confessing his sins,
I’d lost the power
to be surrounded by people.
Ambition, greed, love, rapture,
misery, fortune, freedom, and fate
no longer seemed divisible—
like conjoined twins
who’d become sworn
enemies by trying
to follow diverging goals.
Among the restaurants
and souvenir shops,
the churches, and coffee shops,
I stumbled upon Porta Pescara
and walked through it
as if to be born again.
Once more, there was the sea,
but also the priest still
full of doubts;
there would be no confession today—
I entered the water
to wash my baptism
away from my skin.
Like forgetting
the page on which you stopped
reading a book
you won’t come back to again,
I searched in vain
for a feeling to place
between these ordeals
I’d written.
Like throwing white flags
from the roof of a burning skyscraper,
there was nothing left to surrender.
I’d reached every height
and the ability to fly
was no longer enough—
Only the powers of a bird
that could sleep in the air
could satisfy me right then.
And yet, nowhere did life seem
more precious than inside
the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo.
Did I have to witness a mother
pushing her stroller
for all the skeletons to see?
Did I have to realize
the child itself wasn’t crying?
Why did only dead faces
express anguish and joy here?
There’s no canyon wide enough
to hold a newborn river and dried-up
one at the same time.
The deceased didn’t scare me
so much as the baby did—
like an explorer that knows
how long he must walk
but has yet to make the first step,
I could easily fathom the distance
under which my own body
might willingly drown,
and yet, the mind that’s eager
to live has no way to measure
such philosophies as these.
Just let me be free—
like biologists in love
with man-made forests,
like chemists who only
eat natural foods,
like old men smoking
in front of hospitals.
There’s no need to worry
like a doctor who gets sick
with the sickness he studied—
enlightenment is a city
where every library
is only open to children,
and every city is really a hell
where the fires go out on Sunday.
After all, can you not
leave the wonders
of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio
and minutes later enter
the most tumbledown neighborhood?
Take me into your arms,
you great city of Phoenicians,
Carthaginians, Arabs, and Greeks—
where else but in the Cappella Palatina
could mosaics shine brighter?
Where else is it often hard
to distinguish your ancient ruins
from modern decay?
Where else can you really
feel God in a church
where no one’s worshipping—
and also stop believing
in Him when you pass drunks sleeping
near the doorsteps of Christ?
There’s no point in revealing
how much I love you—
it would be less absurd
to measure
degrees of affection
with a thermometer;
instead, let me tie my hate
with shoelaces and leave
it in the closet—
this way my mind can walk
barefoot on your streets
and guide people only
to your most beautiful places.
Yet, like those with poor vision
reaching for their glasses each morning,
I must take my heart out of its drawer
and wear it to face every sunrise;
like newspapers which never ignore
the flaws of a city they’ve been seduced by—
I close my eyes and read
what they’re telling me:
Your piss-ridden alleys smell
like old picture frames
which have held nothing
but photos of despicable
people for years.
Your aging tenements
are like young orphans
everyone prays and feels sorry for,
but no one wants to adopt.
The cracks in your sidewalks
are faults that have no energy
left to cause any more trouble—
yet everyone still avoids them.
Your graffiti-stained walls
are empty tubes of paint
even artists
no longer want,
but you keep them anyways.
Still, every brick homesick
for the place it came from,
every window staying
closed in August,
every street sign saying
you’re going the wrong way,
every lamp lit up like the eyes
of old men who never married,
and every balcony reaching out
like a hand afraid to help you
is a bouquet of flowers
mixed with red roses of love
and white lilies of mourning.
My eyes saw your body
like two costly wedding rings—
in a ceremony where only one
spouse was marrying for love.
Your own men and women
looked at me as if my heart
was a magnet in the hands of a beggar—
it was really a horseshoe
from the hoof of a beast
tired of pulling its own weight.
Won’t you tell me what goes
on behind the curtain
of your glances
and stares?
Maybe one day
you’ll show me where
the widest part between your
questions and judgments lies and how
you plan to build a bridge connecting the two
banks of this river prone to flooding.
In the short time we had together,
I still passed Quattro Canti
many times and never
once did you open
the door like
a host
that knows
who’s knocking.
The grandiosity of your
cathedral was too much for me—
I was impressed like a hermit
who’d seen people
for the first time in years.
And still, I approached the edifice like a son
who’d stolen from his mother
and now wanted forgiveness.
The way lamps beg for darkness,
just to be less alone in the light,
how I longed to be one
with the beige stones—
their skin so unlike my own.
Would I find strangers
who might treat
me like family at last,
or did I just want to curse
relatives who embraced
me like a stranger?
Your stones listened
with the ears of monks,
and spoke with the tongues of crowds—
no silence or noise was ever enough.
How I waited for a prayer
to ring out from your dead walls
so my corpse too could live again.
How I yearned for less light
so my troubled thoughts could sleep.
Like watching a magical coin
always land on its edge,
I could no longer tolerate
the presence of God—
His fingerprints
appeared on every stone;
and, likewise, I could easily smell
the devil’s spirit that was here
to erode them.
Finally, the way cold reptiles
are forced to move by the sun’s hand,
I found the means to leave without
having to make a decision.
And still, this was a blessing—
there was more peace
in the heat of Villa Bonanno—
its palm trees swaying
like drunks who are bothering no one;
there was far greater silence
in the noise of Mercato di Ballarò;
the fish, lemons, oranges,
and every meat lying under the sun
imprisoned the ears like angry wardens—
forcing the nose to stand straight and listen.
The way guilt tends to sweat
even when it’s cold,
so is smell the best evidence
of a life led with gusto.
Dead are your sculptures of the past
who were born motionless to begin with.
Dead are your divine kings
and so too their castles.
What more could their bodies
and walls have asked for,
except the heavenly right
to become dust—
to be as speechless
in the wind’s presence
as the peasants they once ruled?
Dead are the sermons and prayers
of churches who’ve turned
their walls into museums—
no different than finely carved candles
you dare to behold only in daytime.
Dead, too, are your traditions and myths,
which burn like cigarettes in the mouths
of young people trying to quit smoking.
How relieved I felt, at last,
to escape this passing and stroll
the charcoal-brushed
streets of Catania.
The only things still alive
in Sicily are the waves
molding every dead rock,
and the mountains
which keep causing destruction—
yet, only Etna is like the Christ
that refuses to be crucified.
Yes, you, Chalcidian city
on the Ionian sea—
how many volcanic floods
must arrive to cleanse
all your triumphs and sins?
How much rain will it take
for people to put out
the flames with their tears?
Nowhere else have I felt
the warmth from fires
that no longer burn.
Nowhere else have I heard
the screams from pain
that no longer exists.
Nowhere else have I tasted
the blood from a wound
that healed long ago.
The ruins of your ancient
theaters are more than just matter—
I heard the applauses and cheers
still frozen within the volcanic rocks.
Like houses from which the future
had moved out long ago,
did it really matter that I was here?
And what tiring monologues
did people witness in these very stands?
They’ve become archives no one
wants to visit anymore.
But where’s the fame and the grand
ovations which the good actors won here?
It’s all remembered like a passing
remark you didn’t hear clearly.
Where are the petty arguments
and disputes that occurred on these seats?
Like dust inside a coffin,
they never left the stands.
Where’s the boredom of one spectator
and the excitement of another—
felt during the same performance?
They met on a pilgrimage to oblivion,
walking there for different reasons.
Where? Where? Where?
The Catanese sun had no answers
and neither did the breeze
crawling in from the Ionian Sea.
There was only clarity—
nothing but godforsaken clarity
answering my own questions,
waiting for me like a pendulum
in a narrow corridor,
expecting me to recite
a monologue from the stands,
so the dead actors below
could cease moving parallel to their walls—
see some entertainment at last.
And so, it was hard not to yearn
for the roar of Etna again—
to be free of humanity
and yet live in a city
where you could cross
the street without waiting,
where you could wait
without ever being late,
where you could ignore time
and never be punished,
in a place without punishment
where people followed the rules,
in a place without laws
you didn’t have to obey,
in a place where people
who didn’t obey
them also didn’t exist.
Still, the purity of movement
and action springs from the hands
which destroy and rebuild
their own monuments—
the swamps of remembrance
and reflection, meanwhile,
move like rabbits
which never cease to be hunted.
Morals perceive a blaze
like it’s a foreigner refusing
to shed the smoke of his culture—
destruction treats the same flames
like immigrants forced
to forget their homeland,
but also forbidden to burn
their old language and clothes.
Truly, memory is a wooden boat
trying not to sink on infernal waters.
And yet, how many times did Etna’s voice
command the Cathedral of Saint Agatha
to throw every new robe
into the fire—only to begin
clothing her ruins again?
In the same way we stand
on the ocean’s shore,
never questioning why waves
follow each other without hesitation—
I looked at Bellini’s grave,
then at the walls which protected it,
knowing that like echoes
which die quickly yet
take forever to fade,
the maestro’s music
would stay young even in silence—
every note was a young ripple
that could feel the skin
of your coast only
for seconds before it returned home;
meanwhile, the undying stone
of the composer’s tomb
could always be buried
in Etna’s graveyards of lava.
The earliest morning in the world
isn’t an artist who rises to the sun before it’s time—
no, the most virgin dawn is an active volcano
thousands of years old that still keeps
on growing with every expression
of silence it can no longer quell.
From the dome of chiesa della Badia di Sant’Agata,
it was futile to look at the hundreds of roofs—
their gentle inclinations
reminded me of bowing
monks lost on the island of contemplation;
it was better to close my eyes
and be like a cup in the desert—
reject hope and yet believe in the future.
No, this city neither asked
for God’s blessing nor tried to run
from the wrath it couldn’t avoid.
Lying on the edge of this dome,
like a healthy person begging to rest at a hospital,
I came to wonder whether, like men,
volcanoes erupt because
of the maladies which afflict them,
or if they cried like children
who couldn’t comprehend their own sadness.
And likewise, I wanted to know
if perhaps humanity’s suffering
wasn’t born from the womb
that could see its own sickness,
but that our pain comes from refusing
to abandon the forest
which fears its own laws.
What more should the depths
of a clean river do besides seize
people who don’t cherish it
and never let them go?
Why should the weight
of upright trees
not come down on the backs
of those who cut them without remorse?
And how much more sense
can a blazing volcano make
when it speaks of love
in a language you don’t understand?
No, Etna, my ears heard you like parallel roads
going in opposite directions.
My eyes saw you like a married couple
trying to avoid confrontation
but not speaking in the process.
My feet wanted to approach you
like two rivers from lands
that hate each other—
each stream flowing
into the same lake
whose depths loved them both.
And yet, my heart tried protecting itself
by building a library around its desires
and letting only the illiterate inside.
Like surgeons who find no soul in the flesh,
like lovers who see no history under the covers,
like loggers who notice no past under the bark,
like runners who can’t face defeat at the finish line,
I turned my sight away from your heights
and focused it on the shores of Syracuse.
How else could I feel the Gelsomineto waters?
Only detectives searching for answers
outside the margins of their profession
could’ve understood me right then.
Still, contemplation alone is never enough—
it’s a hotel room you have no trouble sleeping in,
but the view from the window reminds
you too much of home;
it’s a movie theater you can easily sneak into,
but every film being shown
has an unresolved ending.
And so, I climbed onto the rugged cliff
from which young kids
were jumping without too much reflection.
The desire for childhood seized me
like the last seconds of a family reunion
that happens every ten years—
still, my train was departing
and without this farewell
the clock couldn’t restart again.
How I wanted to kill every philosopher inside me,
throw every last desire for contemplation
into the flames of action—
to grow younger,
and not for the sake of youth alone,
but to discover once more irresponsibility,
creativity, and the stubborn commitment
that might keep me from turning my head
at the sound of each voice—
every note leading
me to a different right way.
Like an architect whose buildings
always trespass the mind’s borders
but never the edges of his blueprints,
so the height I had to leap from
was both too high and not high enough.
How did these kids overcome their fear?
Were they like hostages who suddenly
remembered the wealth of their families
and lost all sense of panic—
knowing their ransom would come?
Or, were they like pilots
down to their last ounce of fuel,
flying above calm waters,
carrying no one on board except themselves?
Oh, God, if you have any sense left,
take away this wisdom rushing over me—
it’s the same burden of victory
guilty defendants feel when they’re acquitted
of crimes they’ve in fact committed.
Let me jump from this cliff and fall finally—
both indifferent to gravity like a rock
and fully aware of my fate like a physicist.
Too long have my hands held suitcases
which didn’t belong to me—
my back always facing the horizon.
Like a weatherman gambling
with snow in the summer,
I waited for a chance to cheat
the dealer of fate out of his winnings.
And still, what a blessing it is to lose,
to resign one’s self with the same firmness
cast into the direction of train tracks—
to renounce freedom like a road
which never diverges
but always gives
you the chance to walk back.
Then, like a thunderbolt
which lingers for a second too long,
I could no longer distinguish
daytime from night—
I jumped without forcing
my body to make a decision.
Still, the world returned
when I crashed into the water—
commitments, plans, and hopes
took their usual seats in the theater
of existence where those who paid the most
always got the best view of the farce known as life.
What else could my thoughts be but a million heretics
searching for their own shepherds?
What more did my skin have but a hundred lovers
holding the leash of my youth—
ready to let go when I could no longer walk?
What other point did my life
have besides the sunrise I never woke up for,
and the sunset that will surely send me to sleep?
Like a ladder that’s taller than anything God
ever left in the lowlands,
I gazed at the Temple of Apollo in Ortygia,
unable to see the greatness
of these ruins in comparison to me.
And yet, I felt small—
my humanity was a river
that could flood anytime,
but the engineers of essence
kept building their homes next to me,
making nature more mortal.
Was it really this curse I feared?
To be buried yet never allowed
to become eminent ruins—
to be so sacred that no archaeologist
would ever dare uncover my history?
And still, how weak the hands
of science alone really are,
for its grasp has no greater strength
to lift our corpses than those of religion.
At that moment I knew these rocks
had changed from a shrine of humanity
into the headstone for civilization.
What else did men’s hands carve
into this unyielding marble
except the desire to be with women
who could bear them no children?
What did their handsome faces look like?
What were their names?
The future can forget everything—
even make family fade from a blood stain.
The way maps never tell you who lives on a street,
how it smells, whether there are cracks,
let alone if there’s danger lurking ahead,
so I cursed the intelligence
designed by the charlatans above.
The blood in my hands stopped flowing
like a salesman with no more doors left to knock on—
I wanted to curse the heavens
and the very dirt they created,
but all the anger in my voice
was a piano tuned to the same note.
My body had been reduced to octaves—
the pitch of every organ working
towards one goal.
It was meaningless to picture
the devotion, faith, and sorrow alike
which had passed by these walls—
stones that weren’t ruins once;
now, like farmers who’d never
suffered a drought
and still moved to the city,
only the death even decay
had abandoned remained here.
There was no other hope
but to keep building shrines—
always bigger than ourselves so the demons
above could rejoice at our torment.
Who else except chemists charged
with making nothing but poison
fashioned the pyramids of Egypt,
the theaters of Greece,
or the aqueducts of Rome?
And yet, these things will fade
before nature’s own toxic
creatures and plants go extinct.
What, then, do I make of your
fate, Ortygia, you island of Sicily?
Like you I want to be surrounded
by loneliness and still belong to someone;
but go on, there’s nothing you can do to save me—
I refuse to leave hope alone
like smoke trapped in a room
without windows.
I follow the footsteps of despair
like an echo trying to disprove
rumors about itself.
I turn away from compassion
like a heavy wrench in the hands
of a child who neither has the strength
nor the knowledge to use it.
I get along with impatience
like a critic enjoying terrible plays—
just so he can write bad reviews.
I compromise with anger
like a Cyclops who agrees
to sleep with one eye open.
When I gazed at the lava
stone shores of Aci Trezza,
my body became the anchor
for ships which had embarked
on voyages to find the ocean.
My mind became the tent
for Bedouins who still
went out in search of the desert.
And this time, I saw neither
the dead mountain,
nor felt the living
volcano inside it.
Like a freshwater fish
exiled to a salty sea,
I was both at home
and also yearned
for the place of my birth.
Take my soul, Etna, and throw
it into the fire like a blacksmith
desperate to destroy all his weapons of war;
or consign it to the lowest circle of hell
by prolonging my doubt
for the punishment you can inflict.
Like immigrants who’ve abandoned
their relatives to go live abroad,
I wanted to be a faraway island
with a hundred bridges leading to it.
Like jurors whose bias helps them reach
the right verdict before the trial even starts,
it was hard to be surrounded
by water being poisoned by doubt.
And still, picturing the mainland
that wasn’t visible from here,
I wondered if it’s better
for an island to stay near the continents
while refusing all handshakes
which are hard to let go of—
for that’s what you are, Sicily.
Like psychologists listening
to their friends complain,
like math professors who fall
in love with poor gamblers,
like lawyers laughing
at commoners breaking the law,
like explorers who can’t relate
to those who ask for directions,
like photographers who won’t marry
people with bad memories,
like privates who warn the elderly
about the dangers of smoking,
like sociologists who are never
relaxed at large parties,
like sous-chefs who dread
being invited over for dinner,
like insurance agents telling
their kids not to fear earthquakes,
like tax collectors who preach
the gospel of generosity,
like librarians whose friends
never pay back what they owe,
I felt the textures of Sicily’s body—
beheld the shape of every spirit
in the wide-open yet wary
eyes of Valentina and Emanuele.
And so, I left the island
like a postal worker
who’d purposely forgotten
to deliver a sad letter
addressed to a friend.

Poetic Voices