Ruins

A spring day oozes through Trastevere.

A nun in turquoise sneakers contemplates the stairs.

Ragazzi everywhere, the pus in their pimples

pushing up like paperwhites in the midday sun.

Every hard bulb stirs.

The fossilized egg in my chest

cracks open against my will.

I was so proud not to feel my heart.

Waking means being angry.

The dead man on the Congo road

was missing an ear,

which had either been eaten

or someone was wearing it

around his neck.

The dead man looked like this. No, that.

Here’s a flock of tourists

in matching canvas hats.

This year will take from me

the hardened person

who I longed to be.

I am healing by mistake.

Rome is also built on ruins.