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Europe

by Kiki Petrosino

Every night, I go back to your house
behind the abandoned caserma, where once
I wept in my clothes on the street.

Your same window with its rolling blinds.
Same diesel smell. Same birds on the roof.
Every night, I go back to your house.

I almost dissolved when you sank
your verbs in white ink: imperfect, subjunctive.
I wept in my clothes on the street

where olive trees turned their foil palms.
It was summer. I stood in my smithereens.
Every night, I go back to your house

climbing your melted marble steps. My age
is a seed-pearl under my tongue. Was I wrong
to weep in my clothes on the street?

Your lamps are still. Your mother is home.
I’ll never be so lonely again, or young enough
to weep in my clothes on the street.
Every night, I go back to your house.

"Europe," from WITCH WIFE by Kiki Petrosino. Copyright © 2017 by Kiki Petrosino. Used by permission of Sarabande Books.