Lacemakers

Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello Mater dolorosa , here I am hungry And ill-disposed on worn flags at your feet. Through high windows wintry sun seeps in And floods the six-tiered polychrome Apocalypse, This Sunday's text in comic strip. That's my son over by the door, impatient To be off somewhere. Other boys pose On attila's Throne while their fathers snap pictures And mothers price lace - clotheslines of lace Strung from trucks selling pizzas. Around the lagoon, your fields have grown wild; Vines redden on half-fallen fences That no longer keep the allotments apart. On some islands the women make lace, punti in aria - stitches in air - Materializing the spaces between things.