Volume III Archive

Erin Malone

Postcard Found Under a Café Table

Because it’s not the color of an egg but black like the purplest part of the dark, trade eggplant for its fancy name, aubergine, which south of Rome becomes a delicious dish of spaghetti aumm-aumm. No, no, said the waiter again, and again I said it wrong, a Buddhist chant, spiritual as my wandering in search of the duomo of each town. I like their piazze, how they bring to mind the tip of the tongue rolling mozzarella off a very hot pizza, though actually the word is a place where statues like Bruno’s burn. I like burnished, because of its tint. Words I can’t bring myself to say include juice, slacks and mayonnaise—I could spit. However opposite, spit rhymes with mellifluous, and that’s how I feel after one glass of wine in the sun, burnished, statues throwing off their light, shopkeepers rolling out their shades like the tips of their tongues, as if there were any rain to catch.