Echoes of Puglia
At the top of a narrow stone staircase,
in the white-washed bedroom
of a crumbling farmhouse,
she lay in a wooden platform bed,
shutters unlatched and knocking
in the late afternoon breeze,
echoes of mumbly Italian from
the olive trees beyond,
a lullaby on her heavy eyelids.
It doesn’t matter that she spent the night
face deep in a porcelain toilet,
expunging the bug-eyed shrimp
she ravaged at yesterday’s lunch,
or that she felt too weak
to swat mosquitos off her cheek.
In this moment, she’s celestial,
as close to beautiful as she’s ever been.
For many summers after, she would remember that day,
the fragrant air blowing through the open windows,
the divide between life and death thin as the
percale sheet draped over her bare legs.
Jodi Morton is a designer and poet based in Evanston, IL. Her poems have appeared in The Write Launch, Half and One, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Stay connected to Jodi on Instagtam @jodimortondesign.