Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include The Morning Line, When a Woman Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. He has written such nonfiction books as Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.

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The Best American Poetry 2000

Scribner

Barbara Hamby:

Ode to the Lost Luggage Warehouse at the Rome Airport

Until you've visited the lost luggage warehouse

at the Rome airport in August, you have not lived,

the Mediterranean sun insinuating itself

into the inner sucking marrow of your bones,

roasting your epidermis like a holiday bird.

A goose, upon reflection, would be the fitting

analogy. You hear the faint sizzling of the fat

under your skin, organs grilling, brain singed

as you walk to the guardhouse and show the uniformed

sentinel your paper that certifies you have indeed

lost your bag. You gaze at his amazing hat with plumes

tinted maroon and gold while he scrutinizes your clutch

of ragged forms, signed by Signor Nardo Ferrari,

minor functionary with the state airline

at the ufficio in Florence, who has confided

in beautiful English he will retire at the end

of the month and devote himself to the cultivation

of vegetables and fruit, a noble endeavor,

but you suspect he'll not be leaving his lush paradiso

to iron out your petty problems, for you have come

in pursuit of your bag, supplicant on a holy quest to retrieve

that which is your own, or was once your own,

the dresses, coat, boots, and intimate et cetera,

nothing priceless, no treasures as such, but dear to you,

especially the black coat you bought in Paris

in a decrepit building below Sacré-Coeur,

going with Mimi after lunch, giving the secret password,

hearing the answering hiss, walking up four flights

of stairs to a room filled with ugly clothes,

one divine coat, now lost in the dark regions

of this Italian underworld, you hope, for if not here,

it's apparently nowhere, and this warehouse is a warren

of high-ceilinged rooms with thousands of bags stacked

on metal shelves, precariously piled backpacks

with scurf from Katmandu, Malmö, Khartoum, Köln, Kraków,

Istanbul, Reims in France or Francia in italiano,

chic makeup cases, black bags like the suitcases of doom,

hard-shelled portmanteaus like turtles (soft parts

incognito, mating in tandem), briefcases, carpet bags,

19th-century trunks with straps and buckles,

and you see a woman, molto dolorosa, in latex gloves,

a surgeon delving, methodically, in a suitcase

filled with Japanese snacks -- arare, dried squid, rice candy

wrapped in thin edible paper, red and green jellied

sweets -- recognized from your childhood in Hawai'i, and amid

the conglomerazione of heat, memory, and rage you imagine

a Japanese man, thinking, I'm going to Italy, but the food,

I'll hate it, then packing his favorites: the sublime

shredded mango of blessed memory, cracked plum, dried peas,

and you think of Sei Sho-nagon, supercilious court lady

in 10th-century Japan because you are reading her Pillow Book,

a record of things that disgust or please her

and you whip your kimono around and say,

"Things I adore about Rome: the lingerie stores

for nuns with their fifties bulletproof brassieres

and other medieval undies; the floor of St. Peter's

with its imperialistic measurements of the lesser cathedrals

of the world, St. Paul's in London, the Milan cathedral;

Caravaggio's Bacchus and Madonna of Loreto.

Things that disgust me in August: backpacks with cheese,

child carriers imbedded with the scum of mashed

bananas and cereal, petroleum-laced breezes

from jet exhaust, the color navy blue." Your Italian

is meager but the denizens of this particular realm

of hell are courteous if lethargic and show you

that the bags are stacked by month:

agosto, luglio, giugno, but that's as far

as they go. No Joe DiMaggio or before. To be

anywhere else is all you want. You hate your clothes,

no coat's worth the flames licking your feet, but

you take a careful waltz through the months,

and find nothing in the midst of so much.

The whole long way back to Florence, while the gorgeous

panorama of the countryside flies by,

you have a caffè, try to read, but a few seats down

a child screams, hysterical with fatigue,

and you see his face with its sticky impasto of snot,

candy and tears, and you think of all your losses,

those past and the ones to come, your own death,

il tuo morto, which makes the loss of a French coat,

shoes, and a few dresses seem ridiculous.

You think of your arrival in Florence, the walk home

from the station past the Duomo, your husband's hands,

his kisses and the dinner you'll eat, prosciutto

and melone, perhaps, some ravioli in a restaurant

near the Sant'Ambrogio market, you'll buy a new coat

for winter, an Italian coat, il soprabito,

one more beautiful than the one lost. That's the way

your life will go, one day after another,

until you begin your kamikaze run toward death.

It makes you sick to think of it until you begin

to get used to the idea. I'd better get busy,

you think, enjoy life, be good to others,

drink more wine, fill a suitcase with arare,

dried squid because when you leave home anything can happen.

You may be caught in a foreign country one day,

without money, clothes or anything good to eat,

and you'll have to try that stinky ravioli,

brine-soaked pig knuckles, poached brains quivering

on a wooden platter, tripe, baked ear wax,

fried grasshoppers, ant cakes, dirt soufflés,

and though it seems impossible, they could prove

delicious or at the very least nourishing,

so don't make a fool of yourself, and one day

you may join Signor Ferrari in his bosky Eden.

Everyone will be there God, Jesus and Mary,

your mother and father, even your pain-in-the-ass sister

who got everything. Heaven, you hate it:

the conversation's boring, and everyone's so sane,

so well-adjusted. And it's cold. Heaven should be warm,

a bit like Tahiti, so you're furious, and then you see

your sister, and she's not cold because she's wearing

your French coat, but you're not in heaven, you're on a train,

going faster, it seems, as you approach Florence.

You're in a muddle, glum, have nothing to show

for your day but a headache and a blister

on your heel. You want the train to crash,

blow you to kingdom come. You want your mother

to kiss you, call you Baby, Darling; you'd sell

your soul for some shredded mango or dried plum.

from Five Points

Copyright © 2000 by David Lehman

Continues...

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