Canto X

when the morning sun rises

above the rooftops and mist burns

away only your lips gleam

more brightly than the candle’s flame

as we search for another clove of anise

in the pantry each one smokier

each one more piquant than the first

than the second than the third flavoring

our wine our spirits so that love

burns more brightly than cook fires

as we bake cornbread in our skillets

as we boil water for coffee

more purple than beets boiling over Scythian

fires flames made from red cane like rye

dance dance your dress shaking

your red curls burning over your shoulders

like coals bursting over your dress hair

aglow as the pot bottoms’ iron

all morning light hazes the hair on your arms

and glances off the down on your belly so much

has the morning mist glossed your face

even rouge will not adhere because the god

has said your forehead is mine if you lose

even a hair of your head I have lost the god

you remember the opposite of the Seven

Sleepers King Antiochus kills these seven

boys who refuse boars boiled

you remember this is how Odysseus’

nurse recognizes him the scar on his thigh

from the boar’s tusk he almost chokes

Euryclea to stop Penelope from seeing him

for what he really was what was his kingdom

compared to her Venice floats

Ithaca we all have Ithaca in our hearts

that place we yearn for Arthur’s Avalon

Achilles’ Elysian Fields but Venice

floats in our mind as some eternal and unreachable

cloud-city always about to dissolve to sand

hence the new dikes to protect her

where in Venetia the boars roam and eat

acorns their meat becomes so sweet

even in Tuscany the ones with white

streaks are savored rightly as meat

for princesses orange-winged starlings flit

overhead bobbing among olive branches

while Marco lectures Dante through smoke

on the hill though he may not follow until he’s purged

of wrath prays Agnus Dei

Pia asks Dante to remember her

though she may not follow ever climbing

ever singing Miserere even Sordello

limbo enraptures Thetis yet Manto lives

by mistake or invention both in limbo and hell

so the sea of memory tricks us

yet remember them through all and she

will rob us of our senses defenseless

before her palaces and squares

pigeons and cameras clicking against the cobbles

boats poled beneath arches and bridges

beside windows behind which lovers

trade promises and families design fate

to fit their clan’s desires yes her kin pounce

on joy on love on lucre

her soul is created apt for love and she

moves toward beauty and pleasantries away

from destruction and ugliness a remedy too

this old pope will not bequeath his gold

his myrrh to us if your love marches into Rome you

forget Ravenna forget Lombardy

yet Venetia has lions in her hair and must restrict

herself to the isles to her Lagoon

she must change herself love abides

what if the Hun cannot marry you

will your brothers and sisters roast you or will the Hun

rescue you the waters run clear

to nesting fowl so that the lions

will roar past and ignore your people distilled from fish

into salt your mother’s still has smoke rising

and the salt drying in the sun the pure water

she uses to dilute her corn liquor runs clear over coals

and runs sublime mist above the fire where you

dance crazily to show off that new cloth

we bought for you from the Alani women who spent

maybe fifteen or so days weaving it

then sewing sequins and flames made from cane

into your wedding dress then after a drunken interlude

he falls drowning in his own blood burst

weeping you our man-stream quiets

the bubbling of your mother’s still and the Huns wait

outside his tent then outside our walls

wait for your answer painting on canvas

you know came to being here because the frescoes

would not last through years wet

but even Hun or Goth could not find

us at this juncture hidden with clams

and dogfish and drowned ducks

fruit will not fall only marsh groves

of shell and shingle and sand that sinks

and rises somnolently liquid love

conned by moon by snakes or calamari

or cozza or gamberi chalk into gesso priming

life modeling colors in egg yolks

hidden within handkerchiefs like Gustave’s

love like Othello’s whose ship-born lore

has crossed him even as it seduced a lover

Venice always wins its lovers beneath sea

what it loses it finds and wins endless

beauty in ruin deadly too much know

ledge as Lombardo’s mermaids wedded

Venice wedded to the froth from which she bubbled

robed in motley to hide her later grace

scorn had saved her water shielded her

now marble robes her till she melts to sea again

as Ophelia or Iphigenia or Magda or Orleans

then the Doge goes ashore with St. Mark

at his side to win back her fame from the East and erase

no shame e riposato de la lunga via

all this città giardino unlike Rappacini

so like his daughter ha un livido—sanguina

“C’è il dottore?” yes with blue artery

he spreads his love and languor through our

veins until like Ralph Touchett we know we

have seen the Holy Land and she floats

Barrel Magic

Canto X

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