Farewell to Florence I left a jacket Purposefully At the Piazza della Signoria Not because it was a little short in the arms Or overworn, or because its pockets Tangled up the things I placed in them With shredded fabric decades old that Made it hard to extricate what I consigned Nor because it wasn’t handsome Or had ceased to be a bulwark to a biting wind Least of all because of style Which, when I bought it, Had the stamp of ‘modern’ timelessness, So I was told This jacket – it was a gentle brown, Soft, but not too delicate, A skin whose sacrifice was compensated By the care and skill it took To make it lendable to me And as a second skin it helped To get me through a lot of Weathering The moment of its purchase Was a happy one, as moments go But, you see, The thing about moments Is that they’re surrounded by a Fore and aft, embedded in Some kind of pool that stretches Everywhere until it’s time to sink It was the endless stream of youth at the piazza, The fusillade of dreams under The gaze of Perseus the other day That made me wonder not How innocence becomes a Murderer or thief, but worse, A pillar of the state I watched these happy ghosts Who knew bright promises could lie in wait, Experts in hope and, in their Necessary selfishness, the truth About what it should mean To be alive Despite immortal worms of grief That crawl inside a heart and Sometimes stir when least anticipated – That they could take, and Broken loves and the incessant Effort to be understood With language laying siege and Taking prisoners of every word That, I’m convinced, they could endure Until they reached a line Or was it more a mien, A mask of crusted blood that Thickly grew with every new recruit Who fell upon the easy side of power And stayed – The face of how things had to be – Forgetting who they were or Who they might have been? I prayed for more to make the harder choice And got the thought To leave my jacket, Late at night, Upon the shoulder of an ancient But decided it was better fitting At his feet: it still had use, and Little history to burden The discoverer I bought myself another on a whim, Partly to celebrate, partly to rejoice Because it wasn’t out of need And I could face Medusa’s face This time with levity ________________________________________________________________________ |