Junkyard 1, Week 1

Sitting under the awning at a pizzeria, “California Dreaming” softly blanketed in static, a little boy chases a pigeon with his mother following, the neck of the fat pigeon gleaming purple, gray, and green, colored lights playing across one of Italy’s ubiquitous fountains at night, after a café correcto. Water pushes through the mouths of horned and canine faces, from the hands of cherubs, from the nozinos of this country, as pure and cold as God. A choir practices at the Catedrale de Santa Maria Asunto, bellowing their ephemeral heaven to the flaking paint, the dulled gold of the centuries, filling the cathedral with May, protesting the grand and arching ceilings, the ancient letter that refuses to rot, crying, “We know the words.”