from the blue-spined Italian Notebook, summer of 1975:
Who is it, who is it
who leaves dust on the glass
who moves the petals
from the stem to the table
One afternoon of rain in Rome
I decided to surrender
to the one who kept my love from me
Then I began to live in Rome with Patricia. She was very good to me. I liked her dog. This was in the old part of town. She was like me. She knew the code.
I saw the dove come down
over the heads of the people
over the police and the people
over the old stones
and the living congregations
under the arches and towers
I saw the dove with the green twig
the childish dove
out of the storm and the flood
pure and undivided still
in the world of sun and rain
Green was the twig
and white was the wing
I saw the dove come down
to live under my feet
to live in the stone
the foundation of
Tonight Patricia looks like everyone. She looks like Ava Gardner. She looks like Sheila who died of cancer. She looks like my cousin Lyon. She loves her dog. She says her dog loves me. He wants my biscuit. She wears a long dress. Wisps of hair are free. It’s okay she says. She gives me something made with oranges, a cookie. The dog weeps for it. I give part of it to the dog. My life in art continues.
Drinking every day. C & W singer trying to forget you. Your dead field. Your huge demand. Vieux Bordeaux in a green glass from Afghanistan.
I see the dove. It hates you.
It hurls a gate down on you,
a black gate with iron spikes
Around her neck Patricia wears the anchor, cross and heart. The sun comes out and she puts on her sunglasses. We may have to take off our sweaters. I will slowly fall in love with her. There is no hurry. There is nothing bitter. I will become her dog. We are waiting for the bill.
Just now I actually saw two doves come down toward me in the style of the Holy Spirit descending, light behind the tail feathers and the wings. I have been sitting in a café for twenty-five years waiting for this vision. I surrender to the iron laws of the moral universe, which make a boredom out of everything desired. I will go back to my dark companion. I don’t think I will. One of these days I’m going to let my hair go curly. The perfect woman loves that kind of hair.
Now, your sneer still bright and fresh, go back and read THE DOVE.