Good Morning Readers,

The poem "Venetian" started with this photograph taken on a trip to Italy the year after my husband died. Nothing about Italy got to me like the carnival masks in Venice, I snapped pictures of them in dozens of stores despite the very polite protests of the salesmen.

Today, I thought I'd try to write about that moment in my life, about feeling foreign and disoriented and somehow masked--the way I felt in Venice as I started to realize (it takes about a year, this realization) that someone I'd loved was gone. And now what?

Here's an excerpt:

One night I dreamed

I wore the manic

half-face of a gold-black clementine,

another night, it was

lead-white skin, a halo

of green feathers, a living eye

trapped in the empty socket.

You'll find the whole poem here. And if you'd like to commission me to write you a poem (a birthday poem, a poem on a favorite photograph), check in to my donations page here and leave your request in the comment box or send it to gaildimaggio@aol.com. 

Keep reading poetry. Good for the soul.