Cobblestones tilt my tread

knock me off balance

a sea of humanity cannot quench

my thirst for beauty

No drinking in Vatican Museums

SILENZIO! No hats, men! Off!

No video in the Sistine Chapel

How you deal with that?

I wonder how Michelangelo

stayed hydrated

way up next to God

 

Walking back to Hotel Assisi

I too thirst

when I hear running water

What’s this hole in the ground?

An iron fountain gushing

acqua acqua acqua

from a rounded spout

shaped like a big Roman nose

I wait in line stoop

fill my blue bottle

drink the 50-degree

mountain spring water

It sits in the back of my mouth

so pleasant, so smooth

It’s so…It’s like…

a poem with no end -stops

no stanzas or rhyme scheme

no point except to flow

twenty-four hours a day

for the enjoyment of the dog

lapping it up from a bowl

left at the big nose’s gurgling base