I was sick, more or less, for the whole trip,
and so she got to know the pharmacists
of Venice, claiming it would help to sip
Coca-Colas in cafés, while mists

rolled in like squabbling cats. We squabbled too,
as I threw fits—and luggage—on a bridge,
groaning and arguing as her silence grew.
Which of us could bear the heavier grudge?

Like Proust’s maman, she stayed in when I prowled
the alleyways at night, making a point
of waiting, lit up in the window, gold
and fractured as mosaics of a saint,