Muse

I have this dream: We’re back in the church of Santa Margherita de Cerchi. You’ve written a letter to Beatrice Portinari on a receipt for leather shoes—requesting our love last through this life and the next. Me, I don’t pray this way. I go down to the river, which morphs into a highway, and stick out my thumb.

In this dream, there’s traffic on the Arno. Bumper to bumper. Tourists board conveyances.

Me, I just float on my back. I’ve always been easy like that. A man on the bridge mistakes me for a vessel and asks if he can come aboard. He looks like you. An idealist. You’re all the same, really. Searching for a muse.

“All full,” I tell him. This sounds a bit harsh, so I toot-toot an imaginary horn and tip an imaginary hat, compelled to be cordial. A curse.

Up ahead, a woman beneath a parasol points to a rat in the water.  “My God, it can swim, Charles!” The gondolier winks at me and shouts, “It’s ah-Mickey Mouse!” His standard joke for American tourists. For some reason, my heart swoons with love for him.

I still think of that day in Florence. An afternoon stop on the rattling train to Lucca. I wanted to see the David, but the replica outside the Academia was just as good, I agreed. I ordered an Aperol Spritz at a café near the Duomo. You said my accent was wrong.

I think of Beatrice. How you would call me by her name. Featherbrained, ethereal Beatrice. So sweetly uninhabited, bless her heart. I can still see you at that altar, where she’s not even buried. This is where I left you. My soul got hungry and wandered off in search of sustenance. It was like kicking off my shoes.