In honor of #Poetry month, I'm featuring some of my poems at the garret.
I fell in love with the story behind the name of this beautiful bridge in Venice. Built it the 17th century, it once served as a link between the doge's palace and the prison. Legend has it that the bridge holds the sighs of the condemned as they catch their last view of Venice before being locked away. This romantic notion led me the poem.
The Bridge of Sighs
You crossed it with your heart
laid out in your open palm.
At the top of the arch,
you let your heart flutter
into the shallow water
weeping far below your feet.
Your heart became a boat of paper
floating away, quietly
passing the magnificent palazzo gardens,
the flower vendors with their hands
covered in roses, the church towers
pealing their soulful songs to flocks of pigeons.
You will never know where your heart landed.
Was it caught up by another pair of sighing hands
who laid it to rest among fragrant lilies?
Or did the water eat slowly at its edges
until, soggy from this wet hunger,
your heart sank
under the gondolier's rhythmic paddle?
The Bridge of Sighs
You crossed it with your heart
laid out in your open palm.
At the top of the arch,
you let your heart flutter
into the shallow water
weeping far below your feet.
Your heart became a boat of paper
floating away, quietly
passing the magnificent palazzo gardens,
the flower vendors with their hands
covered in roses, the church towers
pealing their soulful songs to flocks of pigeons.
You will never know where your heart landed.
Was it caught up by another pair of sighing hands
who laid it to rest among fragrant lilies?
Or did the water eat slowly at its edges
until, soggy from this wet hunger,
your heart sank
under the gondolier's rhythmic paddle?
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