cursive buildings

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That was Venice. That was an Italian sunset overpowering the fragile camera. That was absolute peace by the water, the still-echoed lapping of eleven centuries on the stone steps.

I went weeks w/out thinking about the internet or telephones. I brought three plastic cameras across the atlantic. We flew over greenland, its glaciers slipping into the sea & splitting like white constellations in the blue. Our small flight to Rome suffered a lightning strike on takeoff. Trains were dreamboats in the rail rivers of Italy, between ancient hill towns & landscapes you could recognize from old Florentine paintings.

Then, back home, we woke to the sound of gunshots ripping through the early AM. America. Someone screaming for help in the still city night.. no more than a hundred yards away. I called 911, was put on hold. The agonized screams ceased before the paramedics arrived. There’s a hospital a block away. It didn’t make any of the papers.

Other things, too. Unsure of many pieces. Summertime.

You know how, when a friend dies, you can only cover your life in a blanket & wait numbly for the funeral?

No?

Well… that’s how the world feels. Thankfully, my friends are still out there somewhere.