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.