I had it all planned
over dinner I'd ask, all breezy casual
"So, how old are you?"
And he would say
this delicious and scandalously 20-something
then ask: "And Leeza, how old are you?"
I would demur
"It's not important"
He'd nod conspiratorially
and we'd both smile and
dissolve into a classic black and white European film
where indeed, such things are not important

it was a good plan, as far as plans go this one went elsewhere
rocketing off the charts of my tidy universe
beginning with his reply and ending
with all the bloody shock of a miscarriage

and even before he answered
I could have guessed that I'd had lovers
before this man was born
but who knew how this would turn him on in broken
English telling me "You have make me exciting"

his accent lyrical and creamy melting
my lips, panties, jeans and any chair that had
the misfortune of trying to contain me when we spoke I learned
what tongues could communicate freed
of the unnecessary complication of words, grammar, logic

I did not plan that falling for him would be a swan dive
off the lip of the Grand Canyon
again and again even knowing how
many bones I'd shatter on impact
how in some way I'd never heal-or want to
a war veteran who can't stop rubbing the stain
from the bayonet that made him a hero
and gutted his youth

I did not plan to make love that first night
to a man who knew nothing about me but
how to unleash a creature I didn't even know was trapped inside
and ravenous he made me
bleed like the young woman I
no longer am vulnerable
as a turtle on her back headlights bearing down

I wept for three days in his wake
an electric bundle of naked longing
recklessly in love and marshalling
every shred of strength to keep from crying
I love you I love you I love you
least I terrify him with my hunger
a pack of starved mountain wolves descending

I could never have foreseen how he
split my heart open like a summer melon
seeds and juice and pulp spilling everywhere
staining everything
as he touched a place in me invisible to all
the meticulously self-actualized PhD's that preceded him
he would teach me
complete abandon to a lover's Braille
how to make love through tears
fuck without thinking or knowing why
returned to a raw and feral state
at once hounds in heat and supplicants offering thanks
and that before I could pronounce his name
I'd let this man rip away my boundaries
like fences in a hurricane

I could never have predicted the four paintings, eight poems, and 12 dreams
he would inspire in a relationship that lasted all of twenty days
and then
how fast and ugly the fantasy would rupture
when I revealed the truth he could not swallow
would yellow like a chameleon spitting bile

and still
I conspire with my famine to lure him back
ignore bitter barbs
taste only the hunger in him feeding the hunger in me
and know that somewhere between vaffanculo and dio mio, dio mio
burns a man I will never understand and
it's not important

and so, not knowing all that I could never have known
on that first night
over shared bites of lemon grass chicken
how could I be anything but enchanted
after I asked "So, how old are you?"
And he said, God help me, he said
"Is no important "
and we both smiled
not knowing
what was to come

Buona notte, he said
Do you know what that means?

the dance is over
house lights bright sting
my eyes watch musicians tired packing
a 45 hissing skips in a groove
our clothes stained muscles aching
glass slippers shattered feet bleeding
I cling, I beg for one last hug
He sighs assent
lets me curl and snake 'round his chest
thick and muscled chest I've stroked and
clutched all primal urgency suckling
I became with him I became
the pleasure and succor I found
bound up in his arms but

that dance is over
our beat fading, rhythm gone
his arms wooden, hands limp in his lap
as if the ordeal had exhausted every fiber
drained his will
this chill more icy than words that time
that time he whispered
I think you want to be violated
a frantic tango I will not learn
nor ever forget
the nameless naked waltz
that called us to this place
the steps that led us to be one
two, three, dip and sway
one, two, three

Ciao, bella, he murmured
I leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek
I felt his sweet soft lips brush against my prickling skin and
pause just long enough for me to hope

that he might linger
might change his mind
might bring the tips of his fingers to my chin
deftly turn my lips to his
and take me down with him once again

he paused long enough for me wonder
how can one body contain two men
the only man who met my ache where she hides
cradling her tender between steady pumping beats
of his heart, a man
who cries for lambs slaughtered and
love poems sung him sharing shoulders with this mongrel
who turned fangs on me
suddenly struck rabid, a savage
of the late night street fight he
thrills to bloodsport, no
I can't wrap my mind around
this contradiction so I spin my prayers tighter still
around this wounded child as if
I could ever save him

Captive in his pause
I cannot save myself from falling
helpless into the memory
of his hand searching for mine
our fingers interlacing, straining, squeezing , releasing
while we kissed we were inhaling
one another's dreams
while we fed hungers we could not name he held
this part of me that never gets held
while making love we were bound in ragged grace
blind to shadows veiled by tangled layers
of desperation and desire, I
remember nothing
but the tingling heat of his moist palm
igniting my
synapses firing like Chinese New Year
the intoxicating cocktail of adrenaline and endorphin
flooding every edgy nerve
arousing thirsty worlds
erupting in sensation
more fierce than orgasm quaking
in the peril of surrender

and in that agonizing pause of his flesh against mine
I remember wondering will I ever feel that touch again
and knowing that if I don't
I'll die searching

I felt his sweet soft lips brush against my prickling
skin and pause just long enough
for me to hope

Whisper "Dio mio" the way you did last night . . .

with the tip of your finger
you grazed my flesh
limning the curve of ocular bone
light as a whisper your touch
searching for a trace
of moisture, a tear
you were hunting
hoping for proof

finding none
you withdrew your hand
too soon and so you don't know
can't know
that I mourn on an island barren of tears
numbed by the pain of my indiscretion
how I tore this fragile fantasy we'd spun

withholding your heart
you cannot know how I flounder
in a fathomless sea of
sadness out of proportion to the brevity of our intersection
a sadness sharpened by knowing
that I caused this suffering
and know not how to end it

and how can I expect you to believe
the hoarse jagged intensity of my response to you
when my heart speaks a language
neither English nor Italian
a language I may never understand for
my longing is a wounded creature
stumbling beyond the boundaries of reason

when you turned your face to mine
that night
before we ever made love
before we even kissed
when you turned from the gleaming San Francisco skyline
and you whispered to me
you are magic
I believed you so hard
in that moment I knew
I would give you anything
con brio
and so we were a furious fusion of spirit and sweat
roaring, weeping and
murmuring in the lingua franca of lonely souls
we were innamorati making love
teenagers giggling
babies cooing and
I wanted to stay with you
in that rapturous, all-encompassing womb
forever

but we ventured too far
and the frail limb on which we perched
bowed and snapped under
the weight of my truth
sent us tumbling into space
we are free-falling still

it's cold out here
and I am numb
too numb for tears
dazed with fear that I have
broken something precious
that this gash will bleed without end

I have been grieving the loss of your touch
since the moment I first shuddered beneath it
unable to trust my buona fortuna
my hunger so great I could not imagine
its ever being quenched but you sated me
with a passion I would risk too much to possess
your hands of a sculptor finessing my flesh
like so much wet clay you were bringing to life
and you did, Dio mio
you did

with a child's innocence
you lay your head on my belly
pressing gingerly as if it were the first time
you'd felt warm flesh against your cheek
you came to my body with the reverence of a believer
discovering the miraculous in every slope and curve
you held your breath in wonder
until the moment I told you
what you could neither hear nor bear
your pastel illusion shattered into a thousand sharp
shards of gray and rust stinging and
blinding you to the truth-
I am the same woman everywhere
but in the jangling corridors of your mind
where you howl
caught in the maw of your expectations

your hands have become cold
your words harsh
and as I feel your heart groaning shut
I lament
that I may never know you any more
than I know you now
that I may never know you
at all

I thought there would be no second act to this affair
but you came to me again
You came to me in a scarlet suit
with lapels as big as your biceps
In a suit only a lover could ignore
you walked down
the rough path to greet me beaming
as if no caustic truth had ever wedged a world between us

You are holding me now in a way you couldn't
on our last night together when your arms hung dead at your sides
your hands dangling as if weighted and bound
by the discovery that if you could not embrace the all of me then
you could not embrace me at all

But here in your scarlet suit
you hug me once again with energy of a schoolboy and kiss-
your tongue dancing fearlessly with mine
My mourning shroud falls to the floor
spine arches, throat cries opens and I am
released you enfold me

Together we glide to the home of my grandmother
my last link to the old world
to the Europe that made her and shaped you
into a vessel that cannot contain
a woman of untidy history and uninhibited appetites

And of course the house is empty so
we make it our own and
you are as happy as when you thought
you knew who I was and
I am as happy as I can be
without knowing why
you've changed your mind
I cloak my fears in the shroud and hide
them under the bed
free now to purr on your chest
dissolve into your lips and
abandon the ache that has haunted me since you left

You tell me all about your plans
for us you show me
how you'll tend to my comfort
when we drive
wherever it is that we will drive

Playing and laying atangle on Nonnie's bed
We are one breath away from making love
when fear wraps her icy fingers around my throat
I am choking I am
afraid you'll change your mind again
afraid you'll slide from between my sheets
slip back into that scarlet suit
walk down the rough path and
out of my life
forever

And when I wake up
I remember
you already have