So Sicilian

Mediterranean carved this coast,

where Aeolian Islands anchor puffy

white clouds on an otherwise clear day.

Then the hard-working Sicilians who live

three generations to a house built in stages.

The elderly tend gardens and grandkids

while adult-kids work toward similar lives

or perhaps something marginally better

that requires a certificate and less sweat.

The rain is a reprieve from that sun but

brings mud to soil balconies and cars parked

on pot-holey streets. African dust and

volcanic ash, bills to pay, doctors’ appointments

to keep, a family fractured over

a sliver of land that cannot be everyone’s.

Funeral on Friday. Everyone short of cash

with salt-rotted walls that cry out for euros.

Biscuit for breakfast, pasta for lunch,

cemetery Sunday. Vigilant ghosts demand

fresh flowers. Coastal Sicilia is a pretty

place to live, a sunny place where pale

tourists sit on August beaches, to feel hot.

Every espresso and pastry is Perfetto.

Sicily, the only place where a man with

a mouthful of half-eaten swordfish

would kiss both my cheeks while making

my acquaintance in a confusing combo

of confusione Italian and cunfusanni Sicilian.