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Like CattleWords by Daniela Buccilli QuailBellMagazine.com It’s a light blue, bumpy world where the boot of Italy is a broken stick and the US spreads out in largesse. We find Libya on the globe at our knees. My grandfather spins what sounds hollow, a papier-mâché toy. I am 16. CNN is new. It broadcasts crowds
cheering General Gaddafi. Dark-haired heads gather like cattle. I agree they look Italian. He spins the world once, hits it to stop it. He says he was in Rome in a crowd once, too. Because America bombs North Africa, someone has filmed curly heads of short men bullied by their pride, and my grandfather, once black-shirted Fascist, cock-sure, tallest of short men, sees himself in Muslim crowds and says, I didn’t know much when I was young. I don’t sully the air between us. I don’t tell him what my father, his son, said that there’s nothing to be done with Fascists, even old ones, except kill them. Comments
Daniela Buccilli
7/5/2017 12:44:40 pm
This poem was originally published in Italian Americana in 2013. Thank you. Comments are closed.
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