Venetian Souvenir                                             


            My friend, a native of the Veneto,
            Was growing conscious of his years

            Perhaps that’s why I heard a little more,
            The skeins to childhood,
            Skirmishes, meanderings, the inevitable catastrophe

            He worked like a sculptor –
            Not so much smoothing clay
            As adding on, the press of fingertips
            Less sure but less constrained
            On the unfinished head

            His features were less mobile now
            But they occasionally flared and 
            I could tally what he told
            With what I hadn’t known

            The coffees came and went and
            The piazza stirred with grumblings and flirtation
            To begin the night

            I was familiar with Venetian masks
            And so I made a secondary mould,
            One that would capture more of him than me,
            And filled it in to fashion a 
            Remembrance, flexible and light, 
            That could be donned at whim

            And show the side of truth
            That can unveil by covering


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             Emanuel E. García, Sojourns2014