Venice, 1958 by Gianni Berengo Gardin
Not Easy:
(If I titled this poem the name of your band it would be too obvious)
I want you to be
loved. I want you
to be loved
the way you loved
me. Loved like
I love you now
but I can’t tell you and it can’t be
Me:
The one and only one who--well I just I don’t think you’d be very--well, there’s just no calling anymore to say hello, let alone... These days my voice would be a stone on your boat. So the phone,
I put it down. Loving you now can’t make a sound.
(Barely a poem.)
Loving you now: I can’t even remember what I said the last I saw you,
I don’t even remember
how we said goodbye.
The last you
I remember
I saw through
a window.
I was outside
beaming proud I was
that they’d come
my friends
all the way to Jersey
just to say goodbye to me. Send me off. Bon
Voyage. Hip hip hooray
My going away party.
They there
meant so much more
because no one ever came
west from the big city.
More than
you always came
every time and every distance always
just because
I remember us
two at the four-top.
Our first date.
I was seventeen