Postcards from Italy

11 November.  I need a good joke, or at least for someone to pull a funny face. Couldn’t find the pensione last night.  Found myself here.  Woke up all wrong.  There are two crows preening on what used to be a baptismal.  All the best churches are roofless, have grass growing up through the floor.  Listen to me, some kind of authority.  But I know what I like.  That counts for something.  This morning I was counting my toes and came up one short.  I’m hoping it turns up here, perhaps on the altar.  Maybe it’s what the crows are pecking at.  If I had a glass eye, I’d chuck it at those crows, make them quit their squawking.  If I had a boat.  If I had a yard of silk.  If I had a book.  If I had a child.  Look now –beyond the frame– the sky’s starting to clear, bits of blue underneath all that black and white and gray.  In a roofless church.  Losing my toe, stubbing my faith.  Listen now, one of those crows has a good joke.  One of them, a funny face.