Ferrara

But I only heard your whisper through Lauretta's aria: "...if I had loved you in vain..."

Would it change the course of history
if it were me instead of her?

Would the words have stung you less?

My bare feet sting me

when I walk backwards through
bright yellow hallways

but I would do it

if I could count
less scars in your eyes.

I don't know what to write for you
when you don't read my poems anymore.

I dreamed about us yesterday,

how beside Castello Estense

we sat upon high walls and watched

colourful fish

swim peacefully below while

heaven's tears dripped all over us

through blinding sun.

On Palazzo dei Diamanti

in the tight passageway of my heart

the city's Philharmonic Orchestra played

all of my prettiest wishes

but I only heard your whisper

through Lauretta's aria:

"...e se l'amassi indarno..."

And from the bell tower of the Cathedral

the songbirds sung in unison

while in the souvenir shop
we observed the maps
of all the places
we'll never visit together.

Every summer, Via Belvedere

ignites my lungs like bitter coal

behind Teatro Communale where

a grandiose audience

(a single blooming rose bush and me)

observed you

perform your life's work.

A pair in love told us that
Verona is only

an hour's drive away

and you, light as a breeze,

caught my arm and said that
if we stopped time

we could take the long road of life
by foot.

I want you to know

that I woke up with open wounds
where your lips should have been

under the sunny sky atop the hill and

until the noon of the very next day

I bled out the rest of the time we shared

and the time that
slipped through our fingers.

Reviews

[Emily B]

my heart breaks, reading words like these

beautiful if tragic poetry