(Florence 2014)

 

 

This city’s built on dust; burnt

martyrs buried saints forgotten

prophets.

 

The churches hold the ghosts

let out on stormy nights

they knock on windows

 

ask me for my tears

touch my living skin

beg to be let in.

 

It makes me terrified

of death: not the old

age kind

 

the sort that comes in fright

shutting out my light

before I’ve time to

 

embellish a sentence

finish the next line. Too

much left unsaid

 

to succumb to it.