The Makings of Tongues

Cocktails, cocktails, strong and bright

fuel a stormy cloud of teenage girls

from Florida. Drunk

on their fathers' money and

foreigners' mouths

full of utterances they don't

try to understand.

Each phoneme wasted is a decade

of rain, a century of wind

tearing at the mortar

between our few

stones of

dignity.

Snarky side note after cocky quip,

the thin, pasty California boys

tear out the few

tiny stitches

of respectful

cultural interest

left embroidered

on the edge

of a stripe

on the

point

of a

star.

With a few moments' conversation,

a line

bold and sturdy

as the ancient walls

that stand, encircling cities,

separating us

from them

uncrumbles from the blocks

scattered on the ground.

It stands, sturdy as the remnants

that refuse to shiver away from the bustle

of contemporary Rome.

A line

embracing me in appreciation.

Red, flushed with shame,

white, innocent of such crimes,

I float between the green pastures

of this foreign land

and the familiar blue seas

back home.

Non sono Italiana, ma

non sono più sola Americana.