Santarcangelo di Romagna

Santarcangelo di Romagna

Sunday morning, the town’s red slate
crisps in August heat. We have breakfast
in the villa garden where bunches of
grapes blossom in makeshift netting,
shining and heavy, like caught fish.
The vineyard leaves form a wreath,
a green halo around your head,  
in the photo I take for your mother.

Daring to venture out, we follow
Via Porta Cervese to the cobbled steps,
humps smoothed by centuries of sandals.
Black splatters of bird-martyred berries
lead the way to a Marian shrine,
hidden inside a derelict gateway
of the old citadel.

There is a cobwebbed brass plaque
beneath a faded painting. Several stumps
of candles, bone-coloured, form temple ruins.
Looking up, we see sun squeezing through
the rafters, speckled with daylight stars.
Pigeons are roosting in the uneven brickwork,
grey cherubim, and feathers are gently
drifting downwards, curled like incense.

Both of us are unironically lapsed.
But in that dulled gold moment,
with your apostolic hair, dark, soft,  
brushing my shoulder, and the warmth
of your palm against mine, there is a peace.
This is religion, I think, or something like it.

A/N: This poem is from Circulaire, my second collection of poetry, now available from Written Off Publishing here: https://writtenoffpublishing.com/shop/p/circulaire-bex-hainsworth

Wonderful review of Circulaire by ABCtales' marandina here: https://www.abctales.com/blog/insertponceyfrenchnamehere/circulaire-bex-...