An Unexpected Turn of Events

A sudden shock of rain in Bologna that pours
quite literally just like a storm on the frigid sea
way up north. Scarcely a drop and it instantly
devastates the plan on the face of a tourist,

furrows with skill the up-to-now concealed
map of the homeland: clear cuts, pastures, barren tracts,
a swollen storm front looming above the atlas,
a tractor meant for rescue stuck up to its axle.

The legs of a girl who happens to be sheltering
by chance under this same colonnade—
from atop her knee a drop admires the leg’s cascade,
a spyglass sent from heaven by our great voyeur.

The drop reflects what he demands of the world,
everything set in a dance under the stars,
but only briefly—according to the laws of gravity
the daisies await the drop impatiently.