Cantina Iannini - Richard Hugo
Walls were painted blue so long ago, you think of old sky you thought lovely turned as it did, in your lifetime, dirty. Six crude wood tables and the pregnant cat seem permanent on the pockmarked concrete floor. The owner gives too much away, too much free wine and from his eyes too much grief. His facial lines amplify in light the too small windows and the opaque door glass flatten out. To enter you should be poor by consent. You and the world that hurts you should agree you don't deserve a penny. Nor a clear tongue to beg sympathy from wine dark as your life and rich as your dream you are still nothing in. And you should agree to cross your throat and weep when the casket passes. You should kneel when wind crosses the olive grove in waves of stuttering coin. At nine the light goes down. You weave home to homes you'll never own. Only men in broken rags come back to drink black wine under the painting Moonlight on Sea a drunk thought lovely— turned as it...