Italian for You
cooking for Antonio
Some give up their skins
easily, but you slipped
a gourd, glanced sideways
at the past, welled up like a gorge
with flirty water. I was young
as miracles, when I was afloat
before frustrated. Sound
gabbles up like flames, like ice
shrills off a liminal map. My flight
across the Swiss peaks, so close
to the sun: the blond Alps—
like gold teeth—guarded gates
to Malpensa (o night of Europe, o red
eye, and stiff neck). Strange thought, I left
what’s known to melt into
stew: bare beef, and armpit
of scent; this lure of the grist,
of the grind; this evening spent; this
myth ended without mint—in stir
and in season (tomato,
fat and meat)—in
you: oh, delicious descent.
Note: Malpensa is an airport in Milan, an Italian city that deported Jews to their deaths during WWII. Today, travelers from the West fly over the Swiss Alps to reach its gates.
