The literature of Italy makes me want more than one name-
I’d like to pass for Sicilian.
It’s early afternoon on the plaza, only the pizza shops
are open and only the tourists are out.

I’m writing new Italian literature over the old.
I locate my fantasies in places that have their own
stories, graft my wishes onto on the side
of a Vesuvius from which I never have to run.
My literature of Italy has Aperol spritzers
on every page, boar ragu each afternoon.

My Italian opus is florid, just like me
heated and greedy, menopausal,
its languid harbor seen from the sea.

Heather Nelson developed her thesis project under the guidance of CD Wright and Peter Gizzi at Brown University in 1991. She returned to writing in 2011 and has since been published in Ekphrastic Review, Lily Poetry Review, Free State Review, Spoon River Review, and others. She currently leads a local freewrite, runs writing workshops for high school students and hosts a book group in Cambridge, Mass.