Fiction and Poetry

Walking Home from Le Quattro Porte around Midnight
by Jackie Goyette

The Wait
by Jim Nasium

Le Suquet
by Ruth Mark

Sevilla
by Antonio Mota

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Fiction and Poetry

Walking Home from Le Quattro Porte Around Midnight
by Jackie Goyette

Too late at night
I tire and stand and say
Goodnight
Buona notte
To Italian and American friends
Who nod to me and answer back
With their goodbyes
I leave the crowded
Sweatiness
of our favorite bar
Where Italian youth play
Fusball with vigor
And people drink
From carafes of wine
And eat patate fritte
Laughter and voices
Drown any hope for silence
Until I walk
Outside
And taste with eager lips
The crisp cold night air
Void of talk
Except for the echo
From the open door

I begin to walk
Back toward my apartment
Too late for a full night's sleep
I walk alone
But not afraid
Fearless from experience
As nights before have been like this
A short walk
Through moonlit piazzas
Past empty darkened stores
Signs reading Chiuso
Hanging from closed doors
Past churches standing
Tall and silent
Past a few young men
Talking in loud Italian
Probably heading to a bar
This late at night

In the city's main piazza
I look up
The sky is blue like I've never seen
Blue as pure as rock and glass and water
Blue that chokes me with its clarity
Like my lover's eyes:
That kind of blue.

And I walk
Alone still
Watching the sky above me
With its blueness like his eyes.
I smile

Perhaps this place is perfect
And I am happy as I walk
The rest of the short journey
To my apartment
Home.

Other articles by Jackie Goyette:

• Tangible Discoveries

• Parma and Modena: a photojournal

• To the Station

• From Umbria to Le Marche

• An Italian Library

• The Lover's Florence, Florence Spotlight, December 2001

• The Artist's Florence, Florence Spotlight, December 2001

• The Train to Rome, Love on the Road Spotlight, February 2002

• Flying High, Midwest Spotlight, May 2002

• The Bumpy El, Midwest Spotlight, May 2002