1
I awake in Perugia.
2
Shopping carts dot the town.
People here walk everywhere.
3
I ask FedEx for directions.
The restaurant is tucked away behind a melodrama.
It is family-owned.
Fresh-cut pasta and t-shirts hang on the patio.
4
I live above an open mic.
Sign-up begins at 7:30 on Thursdays.
There is no feature.
The open mic spills out onto the street.
The streets sing of spring.
5
Buyback -noun. The act of buying something that one previously owned.
6
It seems to continue
even here in Perugia.
7
I'm watching a film on Alexander the Great on my friend's plasma TV.
The facts of his death remain controversial.
8
We're watching a battle scene.
It pits the Macedonians against the Persians.
The Macedonians have very long lances.
9
Freudian -adjective. Of, or relating to, Sigmund Freud.
10
The Persians use chariots with spiked hubs.
They mean business.
11
All things are not meant to come together.
The hand reaching out, for instance.
Fingers fumbling for keys.
A jingling.
12
This has nothing to do with the Macedonians or the Persians.
13
Or, maybe it does.
14
Midnight, here on a street in Perugia.
Her unlined face, haunting.
15
No idea what I meant by the last line.
16
Therapist to client: How many times has this happened?
17
How long has that evening train been gone?
(I lifted that line from a folk song whose writer likely lifted it as well.)
18
An example of multiple liftings.
19
Screen dump -noun. The act of transferring screen images to a printer or storage medium.
20
You try to reach a midpoint
the median, but fail, but continue.
21
Negotiations stall.
As reported.
22
And now this ridiculous expression.
This jotting down of some sort of equivalence
buttressed by propositions
23
as if you were a math prof
as if you could squeeze it all
into some makeshift container.
24
As if you were riding in a chariot with spiked hubs.
25
A digital billboard:
Lose the fabrications, the flimsy allegations.
They do nothing but pin you with regret.
26
Can you imagine what they would do
had they the wherewithal
to call your bluff with the insistence
of a fortune teller's hand?
27
I awake in Perugia.
Early spring rains fall on spiked hubs
behind a blacksmith shop.
