Generosity (poem #9)

Sometimes in Italy your stomach is full,
but your mouth is not and when that happens
you must listen to your mouth. A common
weakness this seems; the hunger of a mouth,
a desire to feed. Mangia, mangia, mangia
a repeated command. Something applicable
beyond food, because sometimes in Italy
your mouth is still hungry long after your stomach
is full.

I caught the feeding sickness of Italy
on the second week in Firenze; a special Tuscan strain.
Mangia, mangia, mangia, this repeating refrain.
It started with a beer, and then a shot, no two, three
And the bar-tenders love to give those pretty-easy American girls
something to suck on.

Expulsion is the next symptom:
it comes in spurts, often starting with the mouth
and ending with the eyes.
There is evidence of this on the street
In stale dog shit and streaming lines of piss.
For one week and one half I found myself
Expelling liquid lines down the face,
for no reason at all outside of the feeding.
Like in a bar, when a man fresh out of the army
tells you that he just killed a man and when your eyes
open in shock, he says how beautiful they are.
My ego has been stuffed until it purges, and I am worried
that this might be chronic.
Mangia, mangia, mangia
No, basta! But my cries because irrelevant
for even when the mouth is full, things are shoved in any ways.