Tempesta a Bologna.

cheap burberry macs in stalls, as rare as intimacy;
stood at san michele, wishing to be happy.

gypsy kids
reading crowds like swirling clouds,
or shoals of dumb sprats
ready for a plate, as lukewarm as a bed— 
we’d pace the place with chats that’d
make us simmer,

so cold
is the place in an age of young winter,
tourist walks, lambrusco patter,
wrong train to modena needn’t matter—
window smile, searching brush

for a river or two.