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Fred Sedgwick

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Capuccino

In the Capuchin Catacombes at Palermo
shrouded skeletons pose in the twist

and two old fools in frock-coats,
their heads’ flesh ratted to nothing,

complain about the company, or the heat.
A migraine of steel surrounds

the brows of unmarried women, ‘lambs
(says the Latin) leased

for eternity to the Saviour’.
Mostly the children

are little bony forks, but look,
look at this, darling!

In nineteen-twenty-something
a Dr Solafia invented

a new method of embalming; tested it
on Rosalia Lombardo

and she is as perfect
as the yellow bow on her head,

her curls, her egg-shell eyelids,
her lashes, her baby cheeks, her mouth.

Outside we negotiate
Palermo’s one-way system. Somewhere in this city

Rosalia Lombardo’s great-grandniece
sucks a brioche con gelato,

or pours a capuccino, and complains
about the company, or the heat.

 

Page(s) 32-33

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