A Bad Moment

I remember when I was a kid, my pop

used to take me with him sometimes

to gather sow-thistle and maybe stop

to cool ourselves off with a glass of wine.

One day, twenty miles out, near Via Cassia,

we were walking through a nettle bed

close to where the whorehouse throws its trash,

and found a girl lying in it, dead.

When Poppa saw her there with her belly bare

to the bright sun, bloody, her throat slashed,

he yelled and pulled up a whole mess

of heart's ease. And all these years past

I go out on picnics and sit there

and never hear what anybody says.