John Calavitta

I am in Rome
the Jupiter of cities

I only mate with gods

huge limbs with straining finger tips
touch the backbone of the universe

I am a virgin block of stone
that rolls from your feet
like mountain mist

we are safer than we think

*

you bore an archangel across Renaissance memory

on your shoulders
in perfume of pain

candles fed the holy forests

I am weak and must be
tortured

for earth and wind can match a god

*

I crave some souvenir of fallen Rome

like angels with one wing
to reach their heaven

wherever you stand in ancient Rome
there is a shadow

sunshine sending its remains

we pray to this abandoned universe
garments of the mighty

flung away
(I dreamed an angel came late to us)

*

behind the silhouettes of dawn

half of me is beautiful

you know I can't see red
when grey is a primary color

even the sunlight has lost its way
gazing at beauty through a blanket

look for me among those who sit in darkness

*

the sibyl says you'll die in Rome

like the implacable soul of a chieftain
slaughtered in battle

something will make you lose your health
you'll break a dozen ribs or more

in a garden tending flowers
which for a time will be your home