Home

The pigeon taps the cat’s bowl
with a rhythm that comes close, very close,
from the balcony to your table,
it makes you nod at once and acknowledge
the seconds’ clearness in the silence.
It’s only here after all 
that you can really taste
the roots of the floor
adhering barefoot to its soul,
even if you felt the same
walking on that Paestum street,
arcs and bricks
so suddenly at one with your gaze and skin,
squared blocks so worn and warm
on the soles of your feet,
the expanded breath of a cradle
like the tap on a bowl lulling you to sleep.
And you want to believe all will continue,
dust on your speckled floor welcoming the air
shifted for ages by your barefoot steps,
dust listening to the nearness of a tapping beak
among walls now with maybe no roof,
the sunlight of a hot noon hushing
some passing stranger’s talk, steps
shuffling in the slow fluttering of banana leaves.