photo: sharon auberle
by Sharon Auberle
Only six people, it is said,
separate any person from another
anywhere on this earth.
I want to believe this.
I want to believe,
with just six connections,
I could know an Eskimo,
an African tribesman,
a mother in Iraq
I want to believe it would take
only six people to reconnect
with a gypsy I once saw,
the woman in cold rain
on the steps of the Duomo
in Florence , Italy
I would find her again,
her feet knobby and bare,
her black hair tangled in dusty braids.
Begging, she would whisper again
for my bambino, please,
for my bambino
and this time I would take
her chapped brown hand,
place lira in it,
close her fingers around the bills.
This time I would get it right
not turn aside
as her sleeve brushed my coat.
This time my shame
would not outweigh hers.
~ first published in the Peninsula
Pulse
