After Beirut//Paris/etc, from Sicily

The van bumped slowly,
before me     in the headlights
walked a woman     in a raincoat,

I like living
in colonnaded
or high-ceilinged places,
where sunlight sleeps in caves/ paint-peeling
cities that are not often
invaded,

leaving a beautiful life
would be the hardest/

(I passed through Montmartre in the summer,
the leaves were already falling)

I strolled through Piazza Armerina,
smiling at the rich scenes      and night
and sweet and pregnant
street corners

it felt that life was like
those boys in Pasolini’s
<<Mamma Roma>>, jogging round the estate
to see something
lovely      that would soon
not be there,

“He was my uncle,” I said/

I could see the children in the cars
speaking,      I could not hear them/

but it’s probably the hardest
for those that remain      like at the end
of Mamma Roma, when they whom we love
have gone      but we were not there to see it/
and the ones that flock around
to comfort you/ are fellow workers you
tolerate or happen to
know as acquaintances, not even
a family resemblance or
strangers