Poetry: At Radicofani

Old poem emerges before dawn. As present life seems to be full of questions and doubts, I remember another troubling and haunted time. Thanks to Witness Magazine, where this poem first appeared.

That hot June Sunday

we were still new at the

business of ruins, shy

in the face of wind-pocked

basalt walls as thick as a house.

We should have been ready,

after the bellicose landmarks

of Rome, after standing agape

at impossibly somber domes,

the Coliseum's bloody mazes

now sun bleached swathes

so hot the cats hide away.

We were giddy and astonished,

being in Italy after years of dreaming.

Pickpockets the only danger left,

I wore my small purse properly, its flap

turned in, strap slung across my breast

like a quiver. But I kept forgetting

who I was, fingering

my passport, blue proof in

the stunning sun, a

talisman in its pouch

like a scapular. I clutched

thick piles of money, pink and blue,

close, close to my breath, my skin hot

in the unaccustomed ochre bloom.

I seem to be avoiding

Radicofani, how

when we climbed up out of lavender

and poppies, up the dank stone

steps, around and around,

alone in that black tower I

suddenly knew

something between us

was ending,

and how

breathlessly

finally at the top,

seeing you lean against the battered

walls, the sere wind roughing you up,

I winced as a whole purple valley

opened at your back. Below,

medieval warrens of tile and

cathedrals browbeat a chant,

the hectoring past. What I felt

for you then confused me,

lacerating love and

loneliness. I took your picture,

my throat wrenched tight. You

blurred, jerking away from that

haunted tower as if you knew.