Spring Fields
We named one of our chickens
Amore
and ate spaghetti
on the front porch swing.
Licked our fingers
like it was
fried bologna
under the Tuscan sun.
When Granny went
to check the cobbler,
Grandpa told us
the family history
of power-hungry emperors
and milkmen on motorcycles.
Of love that was packed in
tighter than
the filling of a cannoli,
lives stitched together
like the patches of a quilt.
Sharing a mason jar
of spritz,
swapping our gondolier
for a neighbor
who lets us ride
in the bed
of his pickup.
We drove backroads
through hills,
through cornfields and vineyards,
passed a tobacco barn
and the Colosseum
off the Triple Nickel Highway—
the unfolding of a night
Bellissima.
We danced
barefoot
down cobblestone streets,
the smell of orange blossoms
and clouds of plum
looming heavy in the air,
beckoning neighbors
to listen
through screen doors
for a storm
that would flood
the canals.
The rotunda swelling
with the symphony
of lawn mowers
and wind chimes,
a blackbird perched
on the roof of the duomo.
With the moon in his eye
like a big pizza-pie,
catching lightning bugs
as the farm dogs
chased us
back to our ruins.
Wildflowers swayed
in the breeze,
and fly-strips held vigil
as we dreamed
of the morning
we would have enough
kisses to fill
a bushel—
and a peck
on the cheek
and the chin
and the nose,
each saying
Buongiorno
until the rooster
begins to crow.
Mara Lowhorn is a senior at Western Kentucky University, double majoring in Creative Writing and Popular Culture Studies. She enjoys writing fiction, screenplays, and poetry. She hopes to one day have a career that involves writing, publishing, and being creative.