by Mireya Perez Bustillo
That dragon appeared too friendly
jutting its rounded tummy
beckoning her to drink
that hot afternoon past the crescent colonnade
of St. Peter’s seeking the soothness of gelato
walking past the Columbus Hotel with its crosses
of Malta
She had to touch his belly smiling at his spouted invitation.
that morning across the Tiber she had seen
the green-tinged Neptune step out to shake his trident at her tired of grappling with sea monsters
Beyond in that refreshing Borghese Garden
she faced reclining Paolina, Bonaparte’s sister
with the milky skin softened at baths by black retainers who carried her
to her carrara couch forever waiting
to be touched so inviting her jealous
husband kept the creator Canova from her
Here these marbled rooms favor rapes
in the center Dafne’s softness hardening
to crunchy bark escaping Apollo’s scorching
there an anguished Proserpine pulling
her smooth-well-fed thigh from the pinches
deep of that grasping savage
Beyond descending la scalinata della
Trinitá dei Monti to that half-sunk boat
Barcaccia Roman brides step water seeping
to spill in them flowing eggs
Nearby faintly clad Naidi entwine their bare asses
water spouting them in their phallic embrace
of lizard, seahorse, swan and water snake
In that equestrian oval of Navonna
Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Plate, the
Quatri Fiumi sprinkle tourists and street artists
releasing satyrs to leap about them
causing a poet to embrace a posing mime
a dancing clown to spin a musing stranger
while in that tiered Colosseum
a red-plumed centurion leaves his golden shield
to tango with a rapt visitor
the cracked forum below
crowning Capitoline Hill
a giant foot and fist anoint the heavens
the hushed crush of lovers joining
the wanton waters flowing