Frank S. Palmisano III

Honeymooning

Hitched a ride to Venice, fare-hopping
gondolas crested like silver swans with
slick plumage, watching a
thick Venetian mustache hold its
form on a portly face
poling us through windy canals.
The gondolier pilots through the streets,
vends the history of his city
in silence, wishes himself the
captain of a felucca escaping
the Mediterranean. Like him,
I am somewhere else too,
taken by the waterlogged houses,
I wonder if my own
basement has flooded after a
week of storms at home.
The slap of waves echo
against the quays. The noise
of children carries from a passing
street, their bodies
escaped the water where
their muffled voices have not.
My wife taps her watch.
Off-schedule...
Is this all we have left from
the Flood?" I ask him.
The man to whom the question's
posed squints into the sun that
catches his eye off the lilting water
up ahead. He is no longer looking
forward, the direction inhered
is as much a part of him
as this sunken city. He takes
his time. He will take
us out to sea if we let him.

h

Frank S. Palmisano III is a 27-year-old poet whose work has appeared in close to 100 poetry journals and other mediums, including Rattle, Wisconsin Review, and Bender. In his practical life, he works as a technical writer for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and just finished up a teaching assignment as an adjunct professor of English at Towson University. His first book of poetry, tentatively titled Synaptic Misfires and Other Tortured Tales From the Left Brain is due out this year through JVC Books. Despite these accomplishments, his most impressive moment came recently when his admission application was rejected by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Maryland.

h