by Andrew Frisardi
Our smoldering has turned to smoke
That streaks the sky like contrails spread
Across the sea. Your fertile body
Gave me a life before I woke
To sleepwalk where my dreams had led,
Oblivious there’d been a rift.
Though distant, you still have your hooks
In me. Your plain talk has gone shoddy,
Your ruddy natural good looks
Are faded, yet your undertow
Still raises riptides in my blood.
Marking our continental drift
Apart, our fits of fire and flood
Are all goodbye and half hello.
My mother, my love, our past runs deep.
We don’t know what is going wrong,
To whom or where we now belong,
As we turn and toss and turn in sleep.
Andrew Frisardi is a Bostonian living in central Italy. His recent books include The Harvest and the Lamp (2020) and Ancient Salt: Essays on Poets, Poetry, and the Modern World (2022, forthcoming).