A.M. Poem by Josephine Collett

She called in the dark, the old woman, that I should wake
from dreams of Italy - San Marco
wreathed in soft Venetian light,
Observing in my dreams two little girls -
One dark, Italian born, she stands
unkempt, upright
with flashing eyes and empty hands
tattered hand-me-downs and hair a daub of night.
Her counterpart, a laughing tourist child
in floral dress and silken curls
who dips and twirls a red balloon upon the air
as paratrooping pigeons veer in fright,
(Photographer's delight)

She called a second time, that I must rise
to visit loneliness and sit with pain,
Succour, soothe, caress
and tread a somnambulant Via Appia,
as she curses my tardiness with bitter sighs.
Was it the plover's cry to the dawning skies
That focused her faraway gaze, that made her take
my hand in hers and in the holding make
a cord of flesh and bone and dreams
and wild birds flying in the night?
Cord that binds so tightly
it garottes the soul; the cord we loose so lightly
In vain we grasp the air, the balloon takes flight.