The Grandchild of Immigrants Learns A Little Italian
 

The Michael Aaron Piano course, book one
has filled her mouth with the sounds—allegro, andante—
and told her that final vowels should be spoken clearly,

should drip from the ends of words the way the rain
drips from the leaf, or the last of the olive oil
from the lip of the bottle, to soothe. The music teaches:

the vowels should not be lopped off at the ends
of sentences—apizz' and mozzarell'—
like the stem end of the eggplant, good for nothing,

nor rushed away from the mouth, as the dreaming girl
is rushed from the morning table. Her English teacher's
talk of sprezzatura, her choir teacher's Verdi—

Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio—
pour the oil of vowels, pressed out, running over,
feeding the vigil lamp of the flickering sounds.

Cosi, she wants to say the careless speakers,
grandmother, aunts in the pink formica kitchen,
whacking bracciol', trimming the vowels like fat,

Like this! As if the Paradiso could speak
to the putanesca. In time the child will learn
why speaking drops to silence, why the tongue

looks for the easy out and the clean break.
And how powerful it is, this breaking off,
this ocean between the self and the sorrowful past!

How useful is the end, the broken away!
The bitten thread that finishes the crochet work.
The stone that splits under the chisel blow

for building. The heel torn from the crusty loaf,
dipped in the oil and then in the coarse salt
to give to the child. Zitt', one says to her.

Calmati.  

__________________________________________________________

Maryann Corbett's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Measure, The Lyric, Alabama Literary Review, The Barefoot Muse, First Things, Mezzo Cammin, The Raintown Review and other journals in print and online. A recent Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and works as a legal-writing adviser, editor, and indexer for the Minnesota Legislature.  

__________________________________________________________

autumn 2007 | kaleidowhirl
books and chapbooks from authors in this issue