Wild Night! Wild Night!

Regrets, Aunt Ann

5 a.m.
on the Ponte Vecchio,
the three of us
taking turns
perching
on Benuto Cellini’s shoulders
crooning
“Hello, I love you,
won’t you tell me your name?”
unwinding
after our twirl through the all-night
bars of bella Firenze,
where I lose a glass slipper,
and the Arno’s flowing gold,
as if all the candelabras
and chalices
in this city’s seventy churches
have been melted
just to give us this aurelian moment
in which my month-old wedding ring
with Aunt Ann’s diminutive diamond
(a symbol of our love)
glows on and off,
like a weak pulse
when Tomás,
our sculptor friend
who clings to us like chianti
asks, “Hey, where’s your ring, dude?
Aren’t you s’pose to be married?”
and without missing a beat
you tell him, “I don’t do pigeon bands,”
which is why, my love,
from up on Cellini
the city starts to look drab to me,
more yellow ochre than gold,
and the river smells like sewage,
and you and I are so far
from renaissance
we might as well be in Shanghai,
which is why I, regretfully,
toss my own ring
into the Arno.

Benvenuto Cellini

Welcome to Day 1 of Naional Poetry Writing Month! Above, you found my first poem, inspired by this fragment from Emily Dickinson’s “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!” which I found on the Bibliomancy Oracle blog.

Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Immediately after marrying in the summer of 1968 my first husband and I moved to Florence, Italy (Firenze) so that he could paint and I could study art history and write. Our best friend, Tomás, was our constant companion, especially on all-night romps through what must surely be the most beautiful city in the world. The poem is based on a true event, but you should know that the ring toss was an impulsive act that I immediately regretted, as did my husband. As soon as we could afford it, he purchased a new golden “band” for me and I wore it for thirty years. He wore his on his key ring, which amused me greatly. Our time together in Italy turned out to be one of the best years of our lives.

Here we are Florence, Italy

Thank you, Wikimedia Commons for the first two photos.