Beauty and pain too much to bear

Scavenging dogs,
Mistrust and fear in the old lady passing
Trauma in the immigrants eyes and labor in his muscles
Skeletal cats lick stone
Broken chair, discarded mattress, pizza boxes, and everywhere the plastic, plastic, plastic

Bite of hard cheese
Warm apricot sweetness
Cherry tomatoes melt on chewy semolina
The perfect wine and, oh, the bread

Evening crickets twiddle the air
and noon day black birds scree in and out of the piazza
Crumbling medieval flourish
Vista of old stones and aqua marine

Anger that prods and picks fights between young men with no future
The poet jokes about his wife of 50 years

Bells chime the time and remind me to weave it all together

Fixing things is a privilege I do not have.