FIRENZE

Florence was

piazzas decorated with statues and chachkis and ghosts

and walking 30,000 steps in cowboy boots and going to every museum we could find and getting lost and retracing our steps and hunting down botticellis so we could stand an inch away and try to melt into the primavera

was channeling Carravagio’s Medusa as we shouted “vaffanculo” to men that wouldn’t stop following us

and stone streets walked by so many lives and crying over Artemisia’s revenge and all the blood

and thinking about all the lovers the Borgias had

espresso espresso espresso

eating grapes with seeds (no GMO seedless ones like back home) picked for us by a sweet old woman who selected us the best bunch

and making friends and spontaneously meeting up with them again for wine at a real “locals” bar where everyone squeezed into the tiny space, some form of animal carcass displayed above the bar, and people living and loving and spilling out onto the streets under a bright orange moon reflecting back on the river

we chatted to the old man next to us in broken Italian/English about his tiny poodle as he sipped on wine

and falling asleep in the old yellow velvet chairs at the cinema turned book shop buzzing alive with all the stories around us