Massage

It’s the unfinished 

bound slaves in the corridor

that the guide finds particularly important

as a sudden flock of blazered schoolboys

swipes your interest into the cool

dome where David towers in his one and only pose.

They snicker and flinch beneath him, exotic

dark-eyes boys you have seen 

all over this city, their faces foreshadowing 

the men they will become.

Perhaps it’s the pale stone color 

of the walls that conjures a scene from the past:

your body draped in sheets

as the masseure warms your oiled back 

and you feel yourself falling, tangled

amber and brown of the riverfront

twelve years ago, the last time

he disappeared beneath the black umbrella

the first time you felt 

the limits of your heart. 

In a low voice she names the trouble

too much sitting at your desk

too many hurried errands,

too wound up to sleep last night, 

too much strain, too much alone—

the secrets of a bad week

packed between your shoulders.

And you hear another voice, you see the men

emerging as the guide speaks:

here is the body, subtracted 

from stone. what is finished is perfect

while the rest, 

seized in marble waits…

You hurry from the Galleria,

the Arno pocked by rain. 

Your hands release the iron hinge

at the pensione window

before you heave the shutters open

to the noisy street

the sky, tarnished again.