peacock at a garden party
BY JAYME RINGLEB
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All the little Fiats
have clambered up the hill
on the old Roman road—
Reformed, it translates—
and in shallow ditches lining the villa
have parked nose-first.
Their owners, skinny-suited
Slovenes and Italian
Northern Leaguers,
orange-cheeked and already
in their wine, go
slipping up the hill. I am in
my father’s garden
holding a tray of undercooked,
clean-cut pigeon breasts
skewered top to bottom.
There’s talk of the wild peacock
none of us has seen.
It cries like a child
from the bordering thicket
while I make new rounds
with a tray of potato dumplings,
little mouthfuls: the yellow dumpling
like an allergic eye,
flushing with clusters of meat;
the bitter green;
the pink one, lidded and sweet.
I am in my father’s garden
in a silk-lined suit
and a thin, European tie,
watching two little boys—
Umberto and Lorenzo,
I think they are called—
dig a limb of charcoal
from the outlying grill.
Umberto drags black lines
beneath Lorenzo’s eyes, arms
himself with a stick, and both boys
disappear down the hill.
Our wailing peacock quiets and hides.
I am in my father’s garden
where a south wind runs off
with the sun. My father
ruffles my thick, dago hair.
Here we are: love, it seems,
is a lack of alternatives.
The pride-and-joy
cottonwoods, flaring
hierarchies of branches,
flap their papery leaves.
Underneath a juniper hedge,
the peacock folds and flattens
its plumage of bored, bright eyes
and holds its breath.