Passing through Venice
The air tastes of milk.
The gaping June sky is
an infant duke yawning.
Under an awning’s ambry shade
shimmer brocades of light.
I reverently curtsey to the sway
of clerical pompons.
Trailed by the festive wake of a Sandolo
my absent mind floats in the lactation
of noon’s sluggish haze.
I too, masterpiece of subsisting
without thought, time or compass.
Above me a nobile terrace
pillared with jasmine
has lanterns for nighttime
so the crescent moon can rest.
Behind the grand front room
it is probable that
an American lady naps
under her Tiepolo ceiling
while her cat reclines outside
striped in orange splendor
paws pulsing in lazy decrees
over the edge of a green cushion
surveying the watery glaze
of the incoming tide.
Recalling me from elsewhere
extending a greeting
the well-heeled puss grants me
a worldly stretch.
A butler brings him a snack.
Stephanie V. Sears is a French and American ethnologist, freelance journalist, essayist, and poet whose poetry recently appeared in The Deronda Review, The Comstock Review, The Mystic Blue Review, The Big Windows Review, and Indefinite Space.