Rooms and Doorways
by
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I lie next to my lover on the
bed
of the rented room;
So travel weary, we joke that
we have
arrived at our destination – sleep
Because the moon hangs like a
ripe pear
in the tree of night, we leave the shutters open;
we kiss and say goodnight.
In the room above Borgo Pinti, I try to sleep,
but the narrow street below is a network
of connections.
The nerve endings of my back
ache and I can hear
hard heels on the stones of the street.
There is a rhythm like the
tapping of a dancer.
I think I hear her say come
with me,
just down to the café.
From the window, I can see
her
standing over a man writing in a notebook
at a blue bistro table;
she whispers in his ear and he writes again.
Her dress is low cut, and the
red neon in the narrow alley
lights her breast.
She looks up at me and
smiles, come to me,
down to the café; I have secrets to tell you.
Hours later, almost dawn in
the narrow streets,
I find myself walking naked;
My feet can feel the stones
of the street
still warm from the August heat.
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About the Book
Who
has not been unhappy in love? In Lyrical
and Critical Essays, Albert Camus writes “. . . I
know of times and places where happiness can seem so bitter that we prefer the
promise of it. But this is because at
such times or places I had not heart enough to love – that is, to persevere in
love . . .”
Rooms
And Doorways
is a book of love poems (with Italian translations by Adriana Seri) that visits
such times and places. The author finds
through doorways heart enough to love. These poems call one
to persevere in love, to find rooms for one’s loving.
About the Author
Mark
Tate traveled in the Northwest, riding a bicycle to