An Italian Symphony

One Way Street Via Carlo Alberto

You are my empty street,

Italian coffee beans
strewn
across the sidewalk like cast dice

because what were the chances?

of two foreign souls brushing shoulders
in such an impossible way
when we are meant to be
merely mutually insignificant brushstrokes
in my story and in your script

I keep thinking of you

as my one-way street to disappointment,

anticipcating for Time to tell

me that our time together meant nothing

Even so, I sip Italian coffee to remember
the feeling of seeing your tapered fingers
wrapped around your coffee cup

and hope Time will nudge Fate into telling me
there's a good chance of you and I
meeting unexpectedly

in another eternal city

for a second time

Left on Red

2:36 a.m.
I’m left on red
alert with frayed nerve endings,
singed synapses that keep simmering
until anxiety burns them out
and the acrid taste of shame
coating my tongue, befouling the hope
that nearly blossomed into poetry
Red is desire, red is danger, red is
stop, because he made romance a game
I’m not equipped to play
Red is a lacy sundress
Red is the blood pooling in his dick
Red is the climax
this story is not permitted to reach
because in the end,
he’s just another callow boy
with the audacity
to reduce me to an option
and left me
on read

Your Name is Borrowed Treasure

Your name is profanity
I moan in my 10pm fantasies
fictional limbo when I feel no guilt
for wanting you

Your name is Once Upon A Time
I was naive enough to believe
fighting monsters guaranteed
happy endings

Your name is a recycled fairy tale
wearily clinging to my daydreams, and now
your name beats me black and blue
until I bleed red
wine and sad poetry
a cocktail Italian symphony

Thinking your name
is to draw the mental Jenga block
that topples all
my strategically built defenses
revealing     my secret lifeline
of you acting as
my once in a lifetime:

                  serendipity's tiny details
                  arranged into one perfect
                  sunlit afternoon
                  sitting outside a Roman coffee shop

under Venus rising
to study you over my shoulder
and whisper a warning into my ear
that these golden hours spent
meeting against all odds to meet in favor
of my half-buried hopes
is borrowed treasure
the gods will want back one day

Tesoro mio, I'm afraid
today is that day I must surrender
your name from my well-loved
trove of misplaced dreams
—but oh God
I hope you'll be happy—
From the beginning
                       
                       to the end
of this doomed fantasy of pretending
I could ever be lucky
enough to keep you
I hope you will be happy