My Last Italian

  by Nadine Lockhart



Of course, he was handsome but I didn’t know 
he was insane. Even my sister, who thinks
I have no taste, stopped me flipping through photos

when his face came up: pink
high roll, tanned skin, practiced pose of a film star.
Each visit, he leads me to the kitchen sink,

washes my face with peppermint soap from a jar,
removes my watch, puts it with his and hides
both in a drawer—the outside world very far

from his: no refrigerator, no phone. He prides
his writing on a manual typewriter—
authored two Burroughs-type books by twenty-five.

The glitter of Venus holds us brighter
against eight planets shared in Scorpio,
darkly ruled by Pluto the Igniter.

He likes it rough—has me perform fellatio,
use a coat hanger makeshift wire whip. 
Through a window, I notice falling snow
deepening in the streets without us.