For Fabbio Doplicher

We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does “flat drink” mean? and the mysterious
“cheap date” (no explanation lessened
this one’s mystery). Among Italian writers we

could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic—
and least poetic— so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome 
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn’t
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe’s dark. We last Americans

were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked

“What’s poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori

or the statue there?” Because I was
the glib one, I identified the answer
instantly, I didn’t have to think— “The truth
is both, it’s both!” I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest
to say. What followed taught me something
about difficulty, 

for our underestimated host spoke out
all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:

The statue represents
Giordano Bruno, brought
to be burned in the public square
because of his offence against authority, which was to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government
but rather is poured in waves, through
all things: all things
move. “If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world.” Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die

they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.

That is how they burned him.
That is how he died, 
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry—

(we’d all put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on softly)— poetry

is what he thought, but did not say.

^{A translation of Konstantin Cavafy’s “I was asking about the quality” 
 
         For Felicia, Kipper, Oscar, and Kevin. 
         And for Ted and Barron, in memoriam}

I came out 
of the office

where I had been 
hired in another shitty, low-paying job

(My weekly pay was nothing more 
than fifty dollars a week, most from tips).

With my waitress shift over, I came out 
at seven and walked slowly. I fell out

into the street, handsome, but compelling. 
It felt as if I had finally reached the full potential

of my own beauty (I’d turned 
sixteen the previous month).

I kept wandering all around 
the newly-cemented streets,

the quiet and old black alleys, past 
the cemetery leading to our home.

But then, as I’d paused in front of a clothing store
where some skirts were on sale

(polyester, cheap), I saw this face 
inside—a girl—whose eyes urged me

to come inside. So, I entered—
pretending I was looking

for embroidered handkerchiefs.
I was asking about the quality—

of her handkerchiefs—how much
they cost—in a whispery voice breaking open

with desire—and accordingly came her
shop-girl answers—rote, memorized—but beneath her

words, her eyes kept ablaze: Yes.
Mine, too, were a psalm of consent.

We kept talking about the handkerchiefs,
but all the while our one and only goal was this:

to brush each other’s hands—quickly—
over the handkerchiefs—to lean

our faces and lips
nearer to each other, as if

by accident. We moved quickly,
cautiously, yet deliberately—

in case her grandfather—sitting in 
the back—were to suspect something.