Feast Day Morning

Luca is playing his guitar. His fingers on each string move without resistance; pulled toward the earth’s core. The slender neck falls, crosses low before the scarred fields heavy with harvest. The duet played alone echoes yearning, intimacy. The first chord is the hollow wooden self – the rest are bronze tears. Yesterday, a teacher from the other side of the island danced to a tune from his guitar; charged her mouth with chosen properties of his, with lessons of the invisible.

A mile away, dark cattle saunter the towpath – from this distance they are like the black notes, the semibreves, there on the staves in front of Luca.

Women in the street below squeeze lemons on the pavement; it seems to him that they perfume the sun. Children wave red banners, proclaiming the town is theirs. Horsemeat is cooking and balls of stuffed rice are arranged in rows of glazed ceramic pots.

Luca beats his chest, plays out the coda.

The dry riverbed withholds the secret. The teasing, languorous nakedness. Later he’ll cross Giuletta Bridge there, in steps timed three/four toward the final bar. The mass of his heart will refill with the knowledge of feast day, but his body will be elsewhere. The Mayor will be annoyed; the women will gather together and like a tribe of prophets will gossip and curse.

The children will no doubt be baffled, but will carry on waving in the wind.