Stefano always swore
Rimbaud was right —
anything is possible
if you can taste it.
Stefano said colors
speak in different voices,
sounds have shapes
you can smear on canvas.
You can mold a tremolo
with your bare hands,
grab a base note by its wings
out of a breeze.
Imagine, Stefano wondered,
if platitudes marched
in perfect formation over bluffs
to the bottom of the sea.
What if you could chant
a pyramid of old Egypt ,
tango with turquoise
above a mountaintop?
What a feeling, Stefano laughed,
if octaves blossomed all at once —
to spin them on a fingertip
and inhale their vibrations.
And when the ocean guzzled
the soprano avalanche,
melting it to bronze,
the sea foam whistled twice.
I woke just then in that cabana
where I’d dreamed Stefano’s eyes,
eyes that always knew a symphony
once they spotted one.