I rode the train south.
On the left, Vesuvius appeared, on the right,
the Bay of Naples, just as blue,
green-blue, as the walls
of The Red Devil,
a New York restaurant
where we went, already a family cliché:
a trio of dysfunction.
God, the vast
terrifying narcissism
of us all, like rain not stopping,
or like ash falling
on a matron in her garden in moonlight,
the columns in moonlight,
a brutal, little bird on her finger
in the twilight moonlight.
Copyright © 1999 by
Caroline Finkelstein
