Pompano Beach On the beach a classic rock band plays to the ocean and the sand – guitars and bass sit on bloated bellies salt air and heat stiffen gray pony tails flip-flops tap time to a classic beat. A thin browned woman holds a drink her skin creased and evenly striped swishes her frail skeleton in rhythm and winks to a man in the crowd that seems her type – her river-like veins swirling under a tiny skirt. The man leaves a scented trail of gin and lotion to join her flirting, his skin flaking on a sweaty face, fake white teeth, cracked toe-nails on bare feet consumed from dancing in the sand. Far from voices singing along, fading between sand and sun, a sailboat tangos with the wind on its stage of timeless water and dips its frail moth wings.
Professore di Poesia He beats out foreplay eleven pats with his hand his lust for Petrarch is an hendecasyllable fuck. He strips his sonnets thrashes in and out each phrase with a pace his dead moon face sputters in time humping out rhymes. He says the foot and the iamb are all that we’ve got – slams his fist at questions for meaning – “Just count and you’ll feel the form that is there.” He licks his finger, turns the page sucks in air, disengaged blinks with the sound as he counts and pounds his insatiable lust for an hendecasyllable fuck.
Lily Prigioniero graduated from University of Michigan in English Literature then moved to Florence, Italy, where she was certified as an art restorer to work on some of Tuscany’s greatest fresco masters. She received her MFA at Università di Siena where her novel, La Cena del Tacchino, was awarded publication and won the “Premio Selezione” for the international literary prize Anguillara Città d’Arte in Rome. She has taught writing and art conservation in study abroad programs for NYU, Brandeis, and the Florence University of the Arts. She lives with her family near Florence.
Grand Little Things 