for my mother
Our family has become a government-in-exile;
visiting you is like paying my respects
to a kindly downhearted minister who
is equally fearful of past, present and future.
Two small rooms to eat and sleep in; only
the essentials escaped being boxed up
while awaiting their destination. Still they wait.
This is home for now – a little town
outside Florence where the streets are lifeless
and the old stick their necks out of windows
like turtles keeping an eye out for vultures.
When apart, we speak only a little:
a pair of talking heads in a penumbra.
I look at you: a housewife without a house,
without a husband too. Pondering it all,
I chew anti-acids with a sovereign indifference.
Your younger son, your adjutant, or aide-de-camp,
shuts himself in his room all day and shoots aliens,
Nazis or terrorists on his console, almost
as if training for a war to reconquer our lives.