Sooner or later it all comes down to faith. Before my flight
To San Francisco, I’m sitting in the familiar coffee shop/lounge
With its zebra-stripe cushions, perched at this square formica café table
While the woman next to me, in her late 60s, in many layers of cotton & wool
Despite the heat, stays intensely tied to her cell phone, talking in Italian
To her daughter: Senti…Tanti baci a Allesandra! who is, clearly, the woman’s
Granddaughter. A long silence, then, Grazie, grazie…Ciao!! & in a blink
I’m back in the Cinque Terre, walking with Toni in Monterosso—looking down
To the rocks & the narrow sand beach, the illumined emerald water—then up
Via IV Novembre to Montale’s old summer house, the one called now
The Villa Montale. The house of sex & poetry, of candor, the house of sanctuary—
& as Toni’s body brushes mine, the scent of lemon trees lifts along the whipped sea
Air & over the blond stones. A familiar weather. The house of permission & grace:
Where we’d found ourselves in the lost world, lifted by fragments of faith….