Umbrellas

Umbrellas

Umbrellas

In Abruzzo someone turns their shoe out to dry 
sandbanks roll along the edge of the complex
the hilltops occupied by squads of fireflies
& distant viaducts of dimming lights
Look lizards look before crossing the street
The superstrada draws us closer
Its trajectory splits the land & the sea
The old man in his underwear
is diving from the mountains
for gelato & pearls he thinks are hidden
in the crackling pink horizon
Listen large insects from the provinces are chirping
something something
over the noise of the truck-stop

What’s happening in the capital?
The papers say little
Here are the deeds of several people
that lasted a day over the odds
& here are the deaths of several others
One who spent 27 years hoofing bricks in Indianapolis
Another drove home to die
not in a rest home in Stuttgart or Mannheim
No, poised on a balcony in Francavilla al Mare
over a pizzeria & the snores of satisfied dogs

See
on the beach the girls are waiting
for you to tell them they are special
Their breasts are overflowing & already
love has left their faces rounded out with hope
The boys are betting for cigarettes
spitting sunflower seeds in coffee cups
& old women scold
the ones who miss their targets
So what are we doing 
desiccated heliotropes transplanted
in tubs beneath the burning sun
to come to rest in the salt & sand?


Forget things like that –
the tits the seeds the gambling kids
Lie back into the Adriatic of tired broken waves
       & ask yourself
what the moon is doing out during the day?
(You could ask but not in Abruzzese
Maybe the Swiss sunning himself with a beer
or the Senegalese selling trinkets all week on the beach
What is the moon doing out during the day?
The moon has come to take you away)
There is always someone drifting
Your smiles are fixed on small boats
escaping in the distance beneath the umbrellas

& overhead the helicopters
pass like vultures slowly
seeking out drowning men