The Last Snowfall of the Year

in venice you found
the city sinking, descending
its own stairs into the shimmering
green water, its reflection, the
bits of coral and gold and
violet, broken up over and over
again, into bits of candy wrappers,
cellophane waiting to scream out
their symphony.

you couldn't tell if the water
was rising, or if the city just could not
pull itself up. neither, perhaps.
instead, only the inevitable beck
of gravity, laden with words,
made heavy, so heavy, with the
hide and seek games of children, the
suddenly waking sensation of falling
back to earth.

overlooking florence you found
god. he was a wiry man, spray
painting so fast that your camera could only
catch an outline, long ribbons of light
that framed his face, the whirl of
his arms. he is kneeling before his
canvas, and you wanted to become a moth,
if just for the metamorphoses
it would bring.

when you found your way back,
the snow greeted you, entrusting to you
a small girl, lost but not without laughter.
your words were few, because you had
forgotten what snow looked like, so you looked
and looked and looked. on the last
snowfall of the year, you wanted
venice to let go and sink, against sense,
into metaphor.

on the last snowfall of the year,
you wanted to be painted by the man
overlooking florence, so that as you
fell into the snow and let mercury, not
gravity, invade you, thick and heavy
and too slippery for fingers, or gloves,
you could tell the small girl a
story about the spring that is bound
to arrive soon.