Mary Leonard
I Googled Montagano
Nonna I never met you
never saw Montagano
your Molise village
Never knew you
but saw Montagano today on the Internet
and want to ask did you pick wildflowers
for your table under the olive trees?
Did you try to make the best
of stale bread, cold coffee, the absence of greens
no slices of sweet red tomatoes?
Every day at lunch, you listened to the landlord's voice,
louder than the noon time bell
from Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo
What did you have for lunch? You answered Nothing
He lists his feast
He comes close you smell garlic rabbit you swoon
He steps closer too close so close
to hand sweet Nick
biscotti from Campobasso
Today found this
I can rent a cozy stone house for 38 dollars a night on Airbnb
Nonna could it be your old house
the one dark room cold in winter
no air in summer?
And this For sale a three story house
with a stairway to the stars,
a stairway of great value
I can buy your landlord's house for 300 thousand Euros!
Nonna you were a bird of passage an immigrant wanting to return--
a mansion is waiting for you
You can be the landlord now
hear the pigs squeal everyday
grow tomatoes between the stones
plant olive trees grapevines lavender
The Northerners won't yell terroni at you
No longer their dirtyshittypeasant
I know this
we could go back Nonna,
take a ferry to the island of Termoli
Trip Advisor says
one can take a ferry and then a water taxi to one's hotel
and swim in a blue pool or hike down to the one sandy beach
or one can rent a boat and row to the caves of white porous rock
From 2015 I see you Nonna
swimming in your black wool dress in the blue Adriatic
warm so warm on this island of Termoli
100,000 visitors come each summer,
the temperature 88 in July and August
Today you and I can take a helicopter for 50 Euros
You fill your bundle with
wine and fresh bread I fill my backpack with
water and wildflowers We climb the rocks,
you hiking up your skirts,
I stretching back for your hand
We disappear into the dark caverns disappear into the unknown
like you did with Papa and Nick on your voyage to America
How did you know to go?
Did the town crier run down the street yelling
the streets are paved with gold
Follow me me cheap cheap chirp chirping like the tiny birds
the ones overhead the very ones you grabbed to wring their necks,
pull off their feathers and roast in the fire
eating even the small bones
Your secret like the amulets you sewed inside the folds of your black wool dress.
I know this
You Papa and Nick followed the town crier
on foot in carts on trains in steerage
forever to Ellis island
You traveled light Nothing much in your bundle
garlic to string around your neck
a small vial of holy water from Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo
wooden rosary beads to get you through the night
Did the dark folds of your blanket cover the smell of cabbagevomitshitsweat
Did you dream of the green and blue of Montagano
or the imagined streets paved with gold? What did
you believe? You did not believe
never went to mass wore garlic to ward off evil
In Hell's Kitchen you didn't know Dutch
Hell the violent swirls of water in the Hudson.
Hell the tight dark railroad apt where you sewed
for a few dollars a week
Hell eating stale bread drinking cold coffee
Lonely No landlord asked you what you ate for lunch
Violent The Irish spit in your face Nick stole roasted potatoes
to throw in their faces Westside Story before guns and knives.
Did you dream of Montagano's pure blue air the island of Termoli
you never visited as far away as America?
My treat is this
the house dating back to the fourteenth century
the one belonging to nobility the one with the stone stairway?
I will call +39-0874-433-2230 buy the house so we can go to Termoli
picnic on the sand eat three local meats pull apart fresh bread
so we can both arrive.
