Indietro

When she looked back on Palermo my Nonna

as if tearing off layers of yellowing wallpaper 

she remembered him her husband sailing 

as she had once to Italy in war Anzio 

January 22, 1944, to fight for her now 

home she more American than Italian 

against her then land he returning in a 

black bag she wearing black again adorned 

with a red striped blue and starred pin on 

her salty lapel and she looked back on school 

September 10, 1940, she dressed in faded cloth 

the color of black seas mirroring gray clouds 

patched scars like bullet holes she a new

refugee more Italian than American looked down 

upon by second generations then back again more 

layers of wallpaper removed she recalled Ellis 

Island August 16, 1935, and the slurry of languages 

like spices in her mother's spezzatino she an 

immigrant among immigrants all mired in hope 

and dread more layers peeled she recalled the 

brine of olives tasting like the salt in the sea 

the salt in the air the salt of her mother's 

tears from the wharves below her ship as

she left Sicily the shriek of seagulls like paper 

shredding a last layer torn to wallboard a May 31,

1929, beginning she the child a sketch of the woman 

she'd become the last layer now her hair the

color of a Sicilian beach her eyes black as undertow

her dress the blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea waves roaring 

memory and loss

Flash Issue 10