Via Copernico

Nothing plunged me deeper into exile than living in the Via Copernico in Milan. 

It was not far from the Sondrio subway station, and Vespa-infested.

In the next street there was a horse meat shop and an old-fashioned grocer, where you had to ask the clerk to ferry items down from the shelves. 

I learned a lot of Italian begging for red wine. 

I was both impressed and alienated by our beautiful apartment. We had an old-fashioned elevator with iron doors, a concierge, and a terrace with hydrangeas. Such a snake-like name for such a pretty flower!

Outside the Milanese never cleaned up after their dogs.

The Milanese never cleaned up anything in public, though their homes and persons were impeccable. Never a crooked tie. Never a run in a stocking. But dog shit everywhere. 

Nearby there was a garden named for Gregor Mendel. Herr Mendel, I cried, return me to sober German-speaking lands! Give me parks that aren’t littered with junkie syringes.

I had to look up Copernicus to remember where he was from. Like Mendel and myself, he spoke German but wasn’t from Germany. Though for Italians I might as well have been German, since I arrived there via Germany. 

Which was fine with me. 

But I was not one of the many Germans who tell you they're Italian in their souls. 

First thing to do when a German tells you he’s “Italian in his soul” is make the Italian gesture for “what do I care,” which involves flicking your fingers out from under your chin dismissively. 

I can understand not wanting to be German, but this is baloney I've never bought. 

What does it mean to be Italian in your soul? To toothbrush your eyebrows until the perfect look is achieved, but sneak off when your beagle craps on someone’s front steps? The soul is invisible, not manifest in gestures or good taste in suits. The Italians have no more soul than anyone else, they’re just less inhibited.

the past, there you have it

Like many blonde children I was born royal but abducted by envious pygmy bunnies and taken to keep their warren clean. They pecked me, and did not pay well. Still I was able to learn three languages, including bird slang of the western hemisphere. When I got too big the bunnies left me with with the management of Sloat’s Tavern in Scranton, PA in exchange for a purse of chocolate coins wrapped in tinfoil. The man who became my father swept up the tavern. He was a music critic who hated the phrase “head cheese” and his parents were bartenders beset by moods. My greatgrandfather was a tap-dancing Dane who died of typhoid fever while doing the vaudeville circuit. He introduced yoga to the US. but they hid this fact from me, thinking I’d be too full of myself to continue the flute lessons if I knew.

In the 100s

I find it odd that poets sometimes boast in bios that they've had "hundreds of poems in hundreds of publications." I counted the other day and I've had something like 70 poems published, and of course looking back some of them weren't very good. Even now, looking at my "finito" file, there are poems I could publish somewhere, but I'm not sending them out because they're rickety. But there are a lot of crap journals, just like there are crap poets. Not that people who have had "100s of poems in 100s of publications" are crap poets - I just don't think it's a bragging point. When I read a bio, I find it more memorable when someone says "I stick a garlic clove in each meatball before cooking" than when they get to journal #8 in the pubs list.

Anyway, had some good/bad news. A magazine accepted "For Luisa, Waiting to be Fetched." Had to tell them it was already taken. Kind of a bummer, though the journal that took it is a good one. And I had actually sent a note withdrawing the poem. They weren't irritated, and said, yes, they'd overlooked my withdrawl note.

Anyway, cool and wet here. I'm making tomato sauce. I let five or six fat garlic cloves soften in warm oil with onions, bay leaf and carrot before adding the tomatoes.