Rosa
I was always confused
about Italy, and the war the care packages still sent there twenty-five years later; whether Rosa was your daughter whether I had another sister. The man you may have killed was different from those you did.
You planted a fig
showed your kids how
you tied a bottle to the tree where a flower had been. I watched for months as the fruit grew from green to purple and swelled, filling out the small bottle like a ship; the stem stood erect through the neck when it ripened.
You topped up the bottle
with brandy, sealed it put it away in a cupboard where I found it, years later near a small black and white cameo confirmation photo of Rosa in the cathedral in Florence.
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