In Rome with my mother
by Annie Cao
and she feeds me
a meat-filled pastry. From a distance,
we must resemble birds,
our scarves like red markings
on feathered throats. The world will return
to you soon, my mother says
while I cry between bites of
focaccia—larkspur, lemongrass, music in the trees
again. In January, I slept alone in a hotel room
with the bed made and all my clothes on,
my wool coat enclosing me
like decorative paper. When he held her
that winter, did she seem capable of sadness
as lovely as mine? Nausea turned the stairwells
blue-green, and a girl reciting Dickinson
in my English class reminded me of all the time
I had wasted. I kept forgetting my umbrella
and could hardly find my way
through the rain—I mistook the nearby orchestra
concert for sirens. Longing became
a boat that filled, over and over,
with dirty water. But now my mother and I
are in Rome, where the verandas unfold with color:
opal, pigeon’s blood, birdsong
and the conductor gesturing a chorus into silence.
Now my mother combs my hair
and I remember being a child, to whom loneliness
was sweet and justified, like sunlight
softening the newness of spring,
and late one afternoon
when a dog follows us to the end of the bridge
I stand tall and pick up a rock,
but I can’t throw it. These days, all I see
are creatures starved for kindness. He stares
at us, and the river tosses red light
in all directions.