Too many dead beneath my feet

 

clogging my lungs with filtered bone

 

Brunelleschi’s colonnades and cloisters

 

breathe calm

 

 

 

& the angels on the wall stare down

 

as if to ask me why I’m here .

 

 

 

If Michelangelo walked the streets

 

what would he say & could he find his way

 

through Japanese tourists touting

 

Bisonte bags?

 

 

 

Or would he care as long as he could

 

feel the blood pump in his flesh again?

 

Would he stop to stare at David

 

high on Academia plinth?

 

 

 

This city’s crazed with treasures:

 

day by day the cameras snap

 

at genius lost in time. Where are the lovers

 

& the saints?

 

 

 

These narrow streets refuse release

 

of mysteries: instead I stand & stare

 

a beggar at a feast of Art immortal

 

& complete

 

 

 

with or without the tireless tread

 

of human feet like mine.