When Alfredo lets the film fly on its beam of light,
I Pompieri di Viggiù comes to roost
on a tenement block, rippling the hard lines
of masonry. Isn’t love sleight of hand after all?
You and I, in rainy Islington, among discrete
coughs and rustles, spoon Sicily’s raw energy
into our souls. Giant faces undulate over shutters
in the hot body of night. A couple on the cliff edge
of passion, lips parted, noses positioned, close in
for the . . . Twenty years, and they’ve never
let us see a kiss! wails an old Sicilian; the withheld
moment like a slap across the wrists.
How we laugh, as the priest rings his hand bell
and Alfredo snips each corrupting frame.
Kisses drop to the floor, shiny as snakes; alive
in our minds as only the unsaid can be.
