Wealth in Dreamtime

This time we stroll through the streets of old Sorrento
down along Vesuvius
to Positano, (hey, it’s a dream)
where Marie and I sit
at an outdoor cafe. A round
woman with a purple scarf
serves us orange liqueur.
Tastes like opera.
Marie says it’s
god in her mouth.
The streets of Positano zig zag
down to the sea
where women with skirts
in their hands step
into the water after
taking off their Ferragamos
the way only Italian girls can.
This time Marie and I don’t return to the tour bus. We hide
in the back of a shop that sells
Italian candy, glittering
masks from Venice.
Later, we find a small flat
above a dirty garage,
pay for it when I sell
my poem, “Wounds
in Astronomy’s Music”
to Vogue. Dividends from
“He Kept on Talking”
bring enough for dinners
of veal and Prosecco,
milk baths on the roofs
of Jazz-Age hotels.
“Crime and Poetry” sells
for a hundred grand.
That’s a lot of panna cotta, a lot of Verdi under the moon.