MY ITALIAN NAME

My wife and daughters chide me
when I say anything in Italian,
I don’t speak, but that I sing
with operatic intonation,
with excess grandiosity.
Just say it normal, they say.

Then I recall winter ’74,
my first day in Italia, a bank,
waiting to be called.
I’m tipsy from the Alps,
I wander to the ceiling.
-Pignetti. Signor Pignetti

Sound melds with ornament,
my mind’s in the molding.
Baroque? Rococco? Rinascimento?
Pediments dance, columns twist,
capitals call - faintly I hear,
-Pignetti. Signor Pignetti.

Is that my name for the first time?
How’d Dad say it? Pinyeddy, Pig-neddy.
Mom left it flat, unloved. Pineddy.
My bro says it kick-ass. PIG-NETTI.
It gets ugly in America.
-Signor Pignetti!

I float to the teller,
my eyes rolling on syllables,
on inflection, on beauty.
I look lost - I’m found.
-Signor Pignetti?
-Si, I sing, sono Pignetti.