for Natale Mancari
Maybe we should’ve fallen in love.
Or pretended to be.
What was there to lose
except a few hours of sleep.
You needed me.
But that wasn’t reason enough.
And love is no charity,
no tin cup and yellow pencils.
What did we expect?
Trieste was full of disappointments—
a town that got lucky and had the sea.
And how could I explain in raggedy Italian
I still liked you.
Maybe when your train gets into Milano
and mine to Dubrovnik, we’ll perhaps regret
what didn’t happen. Maybe.
But any town with a name
this sad deserves nothing
but a stony memory.