Ribollita

In a Tuscan farmhouse
I cook ribollita, a peasant soup
of white beans, crumbled bread, and kale,
as the campanile di San Biagio rings in the centuries.

Though not Catholic, maybe not even a Christian,
I kneel in the shadow of this church
and look deep inside the sleeves
of a sweater I’ve worn too many months.

After taking his own life,
the husband I knew burned
in a box I chose from several boxes.
I also chose his clothes, the urn,
and in the end asked for him
to look like death, not a false life.

Yet here I am, considering
a soup hundreds of years old,
the golden altar of the Madonna de Buon Viaggio,
and the sound of bells in the lower fields near our farm.
I know the path to the San Biagio
like I know the roof of my own mouth,
bells like foil between my teeth: electric.

The scent of footprints might confuse the dead,
but each night I end up between the sheets,
windows open in the last hour of lovemaking
among bed bugs and common centipedes.
In my new husband’s arms,
trafficking old scars, I hear the prune plums
fall from the trees. I will collect
and skin them in the morning.




From Moon Jar (Red Hen Press, 2020). Reprinted with the permission of the author.