i woke up to a child playing
and as if i had called, he comes up to me
whispering words intelligble only to us
because somewhere, sometime
i had asked a question or two, and he
who had waited (although unwilling
to share the secrets of the world) told me so
in a gibberish of yeses and nos

of sorrows and loneliness to come.

skirting around the truth,
i am one among a million
little sparrows;
in endless flight;
waiting, for silence of night to fall.

when i think of venice:

i think of the branzino al forno
we had at the restaurant;
where we giggled over the
young olive-skinned waiter.

i think of another afternoon:
we went to that wet market,
me in my only dress and you in your brand new sandals;
i had forgotten my film and
you had purchased one too many langostines

most of all when i remember venice:
i remember the firemen
racing down the canal
in their speedboats,
and on that day i asked you
if the canal was deep enough
for me to jump into
because that day
when i left the city,
the siren blaring behind us,
i wasn't thinking about anything
but the summer's day heat
and how:
there was no escaping it all.

is a word I can
never utter and master -
even if I tried.

walking down the street,
we passed by car plates that say 'the right place to be'. i hum to a tune, maybe Kids,
because that was our song then
and you would hum to
it would turn into a chorus and

we continued walking because we had
somewhere to go and because the
distance between us (now a whole different universe)
changes not the right place to be, you

a soft crunchy red,
sweetness trickles in such, are
the joys of your lips.