Heart, my lovely hobo, you
remember, then, that afternoon in Venice
when all the pigeons rose flooding the piazza
like a vaulted ceiling. That was you
and you alone who grinned.
Fat as an oyster,
pulpy as a plum,
raw, exposed, naive,
dumb. As if love
could be curbed, and grace
could save you from the daily beatings.
Those blue jewels of flowers in the arbor
that the bees loved. Oh, there’ll be other
flowers, a cat maybe beside the bougainvillea,
a little boat with flags glittering in the harbor
to make you laugh,
to make you spiral once more.
Not this throbbing.
This.