Black Mistress

Alberto Moravia never spoke about

his woman of Rome

 

She is the black mistress of champagne

rustic summertime cherries stained on linen

Frank Sinatra under her skin

 

She walks the cobblestone streets

of Roman nights alone

 

She sings the crescendo of her jazz blues

into magnetic syndrome

 

Sarah Vaughan on a sleepless night

Dinah Washington at twilight

 

She skirts her venom through the air

lifting her Persephone antics and torture

from her shrivelled womb to celestial woe

past bombardments of the colossal Coliseum

and its glow

 

this putana does not know gloom

She walks the Appian Way as a light-hearted heathen

She taints the streets of Rome in pagan rift

alone at night

Pubblicato in Writing Beyond History. An Anthology of Prose and Poetry, Montreal, Cusmano, 2006


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