I cannot paint Venice
better than the millions who saw her,
tasted her, ravished her first.
When she wore indigo flowers in her hair,
pink and yellow pastels on voluptuous curves -
a body swelling with heat.
I watch her, alluring vixen on the water,
who pulled Byron, Wagner, and Shelley
to her bosom and then discarded them,
like chamber pots, into stenching canals.

I stand in awe, respectful of her age,
her parchment complexion and burdened limbs,
but her former glamour is what I desire tonight.
A courtesan, perfumed in vinegar roses,
scantily dressed, bewitching narrow streets
and powerful men -
Descending like cranberry sunsets
into their mouths.
Tonight the bells of Piazza San Marco
toll her calendars and remind me that
my own face shrivels in this dampness,
my thighs sink in folds, waves of flesh
around tired knees.
Venice is every woman.

She is angry, perhaps bitter,
this night in November, cold and in silhouette,
fog coiling around her throat.
No business.
Her covered gondolas, in green, blue, and red,
smack against one another, restless coffins
tied like wild stallions
to a sea of green monsters.
I stand in an empty square, pigeons asleep,
salt and sea on my lips,
unable to move.