Right after I finished watching
that dimly lighted foreign movie, a masterpiece
shot somewhere on the Italian coast,
I thought about you, your uniformed muscles,
and how you cheerfully delivered
the annoying letter from State Farm
and the thank you card from my retiring dentist
who pulled all my wisdom teeth
and made me dream of hard-ons and unicorns;
the grocery discount flyers from Ralphs
I could use for some mid-priced wine,
perhaps a bottle of Pinot Grigio
or autumn oak Cabernet from Botticelli's Tuscany,
nutty cheeses such as fontina
and the softest of mozzarellas that would melt
easily inside the toaster oven
when I would heat up spiced focaccia
or crisp bite-size piadini in virgin olive oil
delicious with halved cherry tomatoes,
prosciutto di Parma sliced thin without tearing,
and leaves of basil from Liguria;
and the stack of coupons for produce
promising huge strawberries from Chile
and sun-ripened peaches and mahogany plums
always in season and on sale
like lunatic dictators and their hungry enablers.
I wondered if you would listen
to my breaths telling you about the hidden tales
in stamped postcards, photographs,
and expired calendars displaying Venice,
its old palazzos, their facades like festival masks,
and gray dove-covered piazzas;
maybe if I would share in between stalled sighs
what I knew of lustful Boccaccio
and the vintage erotic stories of morose Moravia
and read the romantic odes
or the numbered canto of Neruda
exposing the sea smothering the stolid rocks;
if I would ask you to open the bottle
using your mouth so I could see
the sculpted square of your jaws,
hold the stone fruits so they would slowly wilt
before we would chew them
and blood red-stain our buttoned shirts,
and smell the aroma of meats and searing
or finger-count the soaring fermented bubbles
in place of inaudible sweet nothings;
and if I would plead with you
to watch my flexile ping-pong play until the finale,
swallowing and gagging out the ball
to roll in slomo on my naked loin,
my last performance before the long resistance.