SPRING BREAK
For three days, Friday
Plus the weekend,
I pulled up roots.
I wandered
Freely among women in velvet dresses,
Men in cutaways.
When I signed the guest book
One bowed, one lifted
Fingers to my lips—I was
A field of poppies
Blossoming, then blown.
A blind man gabbling on the bus.
A bicycle colliding with a taxi—lost,
I could be rescued,
Therefore seen.
Vainly I disguised the letters
In my name.
Streets, people’s
Faces, the movement
Of their bodies suddenly
Vivid: spindly
Thighs, the cut
Of muscles
In their arms, fingers
Clutching the key.
One licked her teeth.
A crust of bread was dipped in oil.
For whom I had returned to the streets of Maiano
They knew, but they remembered
Ascalaphus.
When I had enough secrets
I also had pity.
—from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
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James Longenbach: “I wrote ‘Spring Break’ while living in Florence, near the village of Maiano.” (web)
