Our First Summer
by Laura Foley

We dined that June in Verona, Dante’s town,
drinking wine in the square, the two of us alone.
No place to stay overnight, backpacks stashed
by our knees, pensioni and hotels full, stone streets
eerie and still, my first visit to the ancient country.
Soon the opera would end, the midnight streets fill,
but by then we were gone on the next train, next town,
where at dawn we dozed on a high marble ledge
of Bologna’s cathedral, as we waited for the air to warm,
stores to open. We found an Italian wool hat for you
with button on top, a handsome cap I still have,
still marked with your sweat, the graceful curve
of your skull.

“Our First Summer” by Laura Foley from The Glass Tree. © Harbor Mountain Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)