Life in the Second Circle

I live on a beach with a woman who hates pigeons.
This is not the Piazza del
Popolo she yells, pegging salt-swept stones

at them: I share a house with Anna Magnani - she
emerged sad-eyed, years back, from an out-of-date
old film cassette, talking too much, absurdly

big red mouth bursting with kisses: all that first night
we loved and laughed and spoke of life, and she devoured
my grilled squab puttanesca with a whore's bold appetite.

We live in cinematic garlic-spatteredness, my hard-
life love and I, with recondite Fellini dreams
and black-and-white De Sica screens — the outside world

can't reach this beach. They all are pigeons Anna screams
Their asses spread, they flap their wings, their shit is everywhere.
We tumble to the kitchen floor; make love amidst tomato streams.

(the "next" paddle will take you to another poem by this author)