Ghost in a Restaurant in Siena, Italy
In Siena, half- trattoria half- arcade,
my second stop evading the hard rain,
with two sandwiches I sat opposite
an American studying abroad
in pastel rimmed glasses.
Lights on mirrored machines
chased lights on mirrored walls
and in this, the only empty stall,
the girl talked and talked of her success,
and smiled, and left.
Then through the same air still in the door
before it met its jam again
a curved man in warm apparel, sand colored,
against cane gimped an entrance I didn't witness,
now heavily sat opposite me.
Eyes dilated and crooked jaw encumbering
speech came forth in Italian grumbles
and drooling effusion, interrogation,
beneath the brim of a clean tweed hat.
I nodded, agreeably.
His questioning was in fact pleading
to which I had given ignorant assent.
From the stoned shell-fanned medieval streets,
brined, burnt sienna churches of gothic magnitude,
had entered this otherwise tidy man whose steeply humped back
and fallen face, archetypal, ape-like, had scared off
his hold on time's passing.
Violent, frightening,
he moved to my side and pressed his pale face to mine,
eyes obscenely wide and wet and hungry,
hands reaching for my crotch suddenly,
repeating requests in disfigured romance
I couldn't begin to translate, while
resisted kisses missed my mouth and stamped away
at cheek and neck and my own flat, pushing palms.
"We thought you knew who he was!" shared the German mother
after his crouched, rushed shape had jingled
the bell that hung from the dripping glass door.
I ate only one cold sandwich and with a shaking hand
dropped the other in an orange plastic bin.
Yet even during the assault I knew that
from some time-warped dusty alleyway
between bell tower and flowerless sills,
cane dragging ancient mud under old, old weight
some power had sired this form and propelled it to my side
to shock the sleepy safety out of my eyes.
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