A girl in a butterfly striped shirt, the same girl from the school up the street, holds a Stracciacelli gelato in her right hand, the calloused hand of her farming boyfriend's in her left. Their lips meet each others more than the sugar that drips down the cone. His spoon dips into a strawberry cup and a bluebird lands on the bench next to them, sings a tune that reminds me of the Hunger Games.
Italian children on bikes laugh in the background, a bell chimes: two o'clock.
A woman sits alone two tables away, nursing her own cone, a pad of paper with lamb, asparagus and pane sits in front of her; a pick up list at Tigre for dinner with a tabby cat tonight. I watch her watch the couple, eyebrows scrunching up with the right side of the mouth, hands fidgeting with the pen: click, click.
I think of the pen, my fingers unconsciously move to my left pocket, the silver cylinder with black etching; what you gave me three years ago for a birthday everyone else forgot. We stood on my balcony, fingers tightened on the metal spirals. My eyes searched yours for a hint, some speck of something in the pupiled blue, just like the girl in front of me now in Piazza Garibaldi.
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