A NEW LIFE WITH BIANCA

I

There was this pale woman in a dark café;
   someone whispered her name to me – Bianca.
   A white candle lit her face guiding my way,
   and I sat opposite her replica.
   In the pitted mirror among stolen rays,
   it’s like her silhouette began a reeler
   for an Indy movie in Astoria
   just now blacked out by an aspiring waiter.
In my room the TV is an incessant spiel;
   I open the next door to lather my face
   staring at the steam lines on the glass.
   Later I finger the keyboard to send an e-mail,
   scrolling her screen name and leave a trace,
   then I’m back there sipping unsweet demitasse.

II

Felt like forever before seeing Bianca,
   but it turned into our brief encounter.
   So what was I to her, some sort of nebula
   to be observed, then blown away in vapors.
   Someone charmed her with his camera;
   I wasn’t wealthy, definitely not hipster.
   Your face could have been drawn on majolica;
   you were the stars to me in the exterior.
I sauntered along the East River bank
   obsessing about the times we had embraced,
   moments that mean more to me than the sunset.
   Jumping over the rail was an option blank,
   but lacking courage, some things can’t be erased,
   and I suffer twice, not to have, not to forget.

III

My passion for Bianca never ended
   with her marriage to someone else, so hopeless.
   Oh no, you weren’t in the least disheartened;
   I was in denial, full of pensiveness.
   A Medieval dreamer revisited,
   you said in your role as modern sorceress.
   I am standing on corners disquieted,
   Thinking about your exotic pearliness.
Killing time is easy when life is sucked out,
   No juices to go on, niente, nada,
   and I crawl out of my hole of a place.
   I should take a trip, hear the world shout
   “Don’t worry …” to me while I dance a samba,
   be content we’re both part of the human race.

IV

It just took a couple of seconds, that’s all,
   and Bianca’s husband was crushed in a car crash.
   Like in Run Lola Run, where any thing can fall
   different ways, one delayed step, all in a flash.
   You were in mourning when I made the phone call;
   saw you later dressed in black not for panache.
   It was worse when you began to bawl,
   I worry – you at the grave and weeping ash.
For some wild reason I ran home on remote,
   sorry for your loss, but lucky he was gone;
   still it would be a race to win, my milestone.
   Divine a potion, search for an antidote,
   but a chance moment is the sine qua non;
   I waited a year and you were still alone.

V

There is a season for everything, so I’ve read;
   Bianca and I were living together.
   Our love was lush and fruity lying in bed
   like the dessert wine we shared with each other.
   The way you dance around the room in bright red;
   life moves in you, your body round with water.
   Cut to baby who joins us before we wed,
   as this film of ours fades like an ink blotter.
Years later, the next child arrives in marriage
   and it seems as if we’re more content again,
   but the motion picture has changed to parenting.
   Don’t know if we should rewind to a new age
   or just fast forward to something more urbane;
   you and I were never big on focusing.

VI

Italians mastered the art of flirtation,
   so I thought of playing this ancient game.
   What woman could endure infatuation
   from a silly married man lacking any fame?
   Someone, not too old or young, a sensation
   Who’d swoon when I said what a beautiful name.
   I’d throw in blue moons, red flowers, vibrations
   of tunes from the American songbook, no shame.
My moment happened in the new MoMA
   when an art instructor stood close by my side,
   as we studied Gauguin’s painting of the Seed...
   I fancied she shared the same faccia bella;
   we went to the espresso bar where I lied,
   deleted her e-mail, when I had agreed.

VII

It was so real for Bianca, that I’m sure,
   but she never dreamed I’d decipher her tryst.
   It’s hard to say why she did it, go figure;
   should I sort out her pros and cons in a list?
   A sudden rise in my temperature,
   then cooling down in sweat as fine as the mist.
   She said it was a silly trifle to obscure
   things, made it seem less passionate she’d insist.
I debated alone – things remain the same,
   didn’t believe any more, except for her
   which was my mantra standing under a cloud.
   Without a choice, I prayed to Mnemosyne
   to make me forget – need a change of weather,
   but not a change of heart, no crying out loud.

VIII

The children were older and we sought our youth;
   they had apartments, lovers and dreams to live.
   We were free walking naked (wasn’t uncouth),
   enjoyed sex openly and knew how to forgive.
   Breast cancer advances, we read in some booth,
   with childbirth post thirty, they were positive.
   Bianca’s diagnosis turned into truth;
   ironic our newborn love gauged negative.
The stages of her life induced her dying;
   at the wake they said how beautiful she looked,
   while I paced the bedroom floor, muttering why?
   It’s been a year now and I’m still not trying
   to meet someone, friends plead, but CDs have me hooked,
   as Nancy Lamott sings Not a Day Goes By.

IX

We dreamed for reunion in Paradiso
   before she died, planned like Dante and Beatrice.
   Our love was like dancing an adagio,
   but we managed to stay online, free access.
   I google Bianca to make sure, you know,
   she has name recognition on earth’s surface.
   he children and I rented a bungalow
   and we reminisced, forgetting all the stress.
In Greenwood, re-landmarked with her in the ground,
   I prefer to see her under stars at night
   yet still carry daily votives for my belle.
   One eve, crashing this garden of death, no sound,
   I’d thought to speed up life’s process to unite,
   but things would reverse, sending me back to hell.

– This nine poem sequence is written in the Sicilian sonnet form of Giacomo da Lentini, a major poet of the Sicilian School of Poetry, who has been documented by scholars as the inventor the first sonnet. It is also written as a tribute to Dante’s La Vita Nuova.