REMUS Vol IX 2015 by The American University of Rome

R E M U S The American University of Romeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Literary Journal

Volume IX

2015

Remus Literary Journal Volume IX Spring 2015 Editorial Supervisor: Lisa Colletta Professor of English Director, Communication and English Program Student Editors: Kristen Hook & Kiana Nakagawa Layout & Design: Kiana Nakagawa Remus Publications Department of Communication and English The American University of Rome Via Pietro Roselli, 4, Rome, Italy 00153 Email: remuslitjournal@gmail.com http://www.aur.edu/communication-english/remus-literary-journal/ Cover Photo: Nicole Fersko Remus thanks the Department of Communication and English

2015 Remus Publications ÂŠ

In this issue: Be Still, My Beetroot Heart.............. 1 Benjamin Shaw

Virgin Ink......................................... 4 Maysan Nasser

Three Crown Chorus........................ 6 I. Florentine Funkadelic Kristen Hook

Envy.................................................. 7 Daniel Maloney

The Smell of Sadness........................8 Laura Estrada Prada

trust ...............................................11 Rich Moore

Description of a Roman Catcall..... 12 Ellen Gardin

The Garbo Angel.............................14 Daniel Maloney

Three Crown Chorus...................... 16 II. Tuscans in the Cupboard (Short Version) Kristen Hook

Over and Out.................................. 18 Maysan Nasser

Protestant Cemetery....................... 19 Daniel Maloney

NembrĂ˛t..........................................20 Kristen Hook

Protestant Cemetery....................... 22 Kristen Hook

John Gibson.................................... 24 Nicole Fersko

Santa Maria Maggiore.................... 25 Daniel Maloney

Featuring art by: Nicole Fersko 3 Marlene Beniquez 5 Bin Han 7 Francesca Aka 9 Bin Han 10 Rebecca Fowler 15 Kiana Nakagawa 21

Be Still, My Beetroot Heart Benjamin Shaw It was a beetroot tart, covered with creamy horseradish sauce and served on a bed of peas, carrots, and roasted potatoes. The other details of the evening are hazy, but this meal sticks out clearly in my mind. My memory is often unreliable; details tend to vanish as if I’ve been taking notes on an Etch-a-Sketch. Usually, I can only recall broad outlines. I remember, for instance, that I was with my classmate, Will, eating at a pub while studying abroad in London1. After that, however, the details get a bit dicey. One of the words on the pub’s sign, I am absolutely certain, was “Lion.” The other two escape me completely. I’d hazard a guess that another was “The,” but I wouldn’t bet money on it. I remember that the pub was within a few blocks of an H&M, but that describes almost every building in London. The pub had greenish fixtures, glass windows in the front, and a hanging, wooden sign with a picture of a lion on it above the door. This narrows it down to the majority of pubs in London and every other major city from Paris to Philadelphia. To sum up: I have no idea where this pub is, what it was called, what landmarks are nearby, or even really what it looks like. All I have left is the beetroot tart. That evening, Will and I were in downtown London to see a production of Julius Caesar set in a women’s prison (think of it as the Royal Shakespeare Company meets Orange is the New Black). We had a few hours to kill, and so we decided to grab a bite to eat at the first pub we saw. A member of the staff ushered us to the dining room upstairs, as the main area below was packed. They sat us down by the window, and we settled in to look through the menus. One perk of being a vegetarian is that it makes most menu decisions significantly less difficult. This pub was no exception, serving only one entrée not containing meat—a beetroot tart. I ordered it out of obligation, as I hadn’t really sought out beetroot on any other occasion. When it comes to being the butt of a joke, English pub food is rivaled only by airplane food and fruitcake. I had heard stories of soggy sandwiches and the blandest dishes you could imagine, with only fish and chips standing between the nation and complete culinary disaster. So, with only a background of broad cultural stereotype to go on, my expectations for the meal were not high. When the waiter brought our dishes from the kitchen, however, everything changed. This wasn’t the bland, boring, tasteless meal I had been promised. It looked good. The plate was a masterpiece, beautifully arranged, with the tart sitting proudly in the center, surrounded and supported by the vegetables, and covered by the horseradish sauce like royalty in ermine. I couldn’t wait to try a forkful. I bit into it, and that was it. I was in love. I’m not a foodie, by any means, but this beetroot tart made me seriously consider converting. In that moment, I would have started a food blog in its honor. I would have opened a Pinterest dedicated to beetroot. I would have Instagrammed the shit out of that dinner. The tart’s crust was beautifully flaky, and the beetroot inside stood out vividly, tasting dark and slightly juicy. The horseradish’s ordinary, bitter bite softened into a perfect, creamy counterpoint to the tart. The roasted potatoes, lightly seared, anchored the meal with solid savoriness. The peas and carrots, tender and buttery, added flavorful 1

RIP Taylor, victim of editing

color to an already varied plate. Gorgeous. I knew, while I was eating it, that it was the best thing that I had ever tasted. As I ate and exclaimed to Will, I was already speculating wildly about how such an average-seeming pub had produced such an extraordinary dish. This was no ordinary pub meal. This tart was clearly the work of some talented chef, an artist of the palate, who had been sidetracked somewhere in life and was now languishing in this pub’s kitchen, making flawless horseradish sauce and the crispy crust of every baker’s fantasies, waiting to be discovered and whisked away to the five-star restaurant where he so clearly belonged. Or at least, that’s how I remember it. But here’s the problem: I will never be sure of this dinner’s actual quality. I’ve left out two important details from the story above: first, that before we ordered our food, Will and I had both ordered beer; and second, that I had never before tasted alcohol. The waiter had asked us if we wanted drinks, and, giving each other sidelong glances, we both said, “Yes.” “What do you have on tap?” I asked, adopting the casual manner of someone who had definitely drunk beer before. “We have…” the waiter rattled off a list of beers that I had, of course, never heard of. “I’ll take the… [first beverage you just listed],” I said, with what I thought at the time was an excellent imitation of confidence. “I’ll have the same,” said Will, with similar aplomb. I was glad that I had fooled him into thinking I was as experienced as he was in the realm of beer. I had only known Will for a few days, and I hoped to avoid looking like an idiot in front of him. In retrospect, it was painfully clear that Will was as much of a beer novice as I was. If his quasi-confident tone hadn’t fooled the waiter, though, it had certainly fooled me, and vice versa. When our drinks arrived, they turned out to be some kind of pale ale, cold and frothy, and, once I took a sip, intolerably bitter to my virgin palate. I let out a grunt of disgust, attempting to disguise it as a sigh of satisfaction. Will expelled a similar amount of ambiguous air. He’s enjoying it, I thought. I clearly had no choice but to keep going. I took another sip, and, meeting my eyes, Will took one of his own. This prompted me to take another, followed in turn by one of his. We spent the entire meal this way, peppering the conversation with barely-concealed grimaces, neither of us willing to back down before a more experienced ale drinker. When the food finally arrived, it was a welcome relief from the quite unnecessary ordeal to which we were subjecting ourselves. After the mouthenveloping bitterness of that ale, the savory, creamy taste of the beetroot tart was heaven. So, I have to ask myself: was it actually, genuinely, any good? This tart (for which, as I’ve hinted, I was prepared to sacrifice my firstborn son) might have been the amazing culinary experience that I thought it was, or it might have just been an average meal paired with a horrifying beverage. There’s really no way for me to know for certain. After sheepishly fleeing the pub once the meal was through, half-drunk glasses of ale still on the table, I have never returned to “The (?) ____ Lion.” I have very little hope of finding the pub again, since a goldfish would give me a run for my money in a game of Memory. Even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to try the beetroot tart again. As it is, the tart is enshrined in my memory as a perfect, shining ideal of what a meal should be: delicious, filling, each part of the dish complementing the other. If I tried it again, it would almost certainly fail to live up to my expectations. I’m going to choose to believe that what I felt about the meal in London was the actual truth. If this perfect meal only exists in my memory, I don’t want R reality to let me down. 2

Untitled Nicole Fersko

Virgin Ink Maysan Nasser ‘I wish I was a poet.’ I didn’t, wasn’t going to, and had no intention of opening it. It will sit there until it rots, I had decided. ‘I wish I was a poet,’ reads the smudged ink on the envelope. It sits patiently on the bottom-left corner of my grey bed sheets, collecting dust, while I struggle not to give in to the lure of memories. The fan struggles on, with its 90-degree rotation. Around the 45th, ever so slightly it starts to churn; starts to sound like it is possibly agitated with my immobility. I don’t care, I’m not getting up. The light bulb, on the other hand, is a warrior. It has been struggling night and day to keep my eyesight intact. My right eyelid twitches regardless. It’s probably overloaded with decaying visual realities. The phone rings. I let it ring. I know it’s not you. At seven past seven, I share a private joke with my watch. I wish I was a poet as well, a bad poet. You always said if there was a prize for bad poetry, I would win second place. On days like this, when Bukowski’s voice scoffs in my ear, “You don’t choose writing; writing chooses you,” I leave the pen a safe half-mile away, knowing that staying intact is the outcome of not trying to form sentences on paper. 4

‘I wish I was a poet.’ My eyes gravitate to the same six words. Or are they three? Do letters count? Any distraction will do, any distraction is keeping my head in place. I steal a quick glance. The messy, green ink probably means you had been drinking that night and couldn’t find your darling black. So, you decided green would be louder. Could it be that whiskey bottle I left sitting on the edge of your desk, is it still there for dramatic effect? Keeping the ashtray company? I’ve quit smoking, you know. I would write back to you and tell you all about the range of shadows that no longer make my day. All about the aqua blue I’ve puked on and the tar black I’ve befriended. See, I would write it all in a letter, and lick the envelope’s edges, just like we used to seal our joints. But that would mean intentionally touching thighs with the psychopathic stranger sitting next to me on the bus. That would mean—my eyes can’t sit still, I move them all around the room in hope of a distraction. ‘I wish I was a poet.’ Fuck. Heavy, so heavy, I trace the wrinkled edges with my eyes. I pick up what’s left of you and urgently place you on the bottom of the trash can. Finally, I breathe, and notice a sly shadow sneaking its way in between the chipped, wooden window frames and the dirtied, pale curtains. It lies shyly on the welcoming, naked floors, as I resist an urge to free-fall beneath my eyelids and think of every surfacing suppressed memory. My eyelids kiss, I give in for a split second. I’ve forgotten what you look like. R

Carlina

(Oil)

Marlene Beniquez

Three Crown Chorus I. Florentine Funkadelic Kristen Hook “Dante! Whatcha do-in’?” “Standing on the verge of getting it on, really getting it on.” Anthony Kiedis. Alighieri. Florentine-West Coast mash-up. My It.-Lit. imagination’s reaction to a Tonight Show LIVE! commercial resurgence of 90-time punk. It’s the lean in, lean out. Hunched-back rocking-sway ring shout. The backwards cap and the laurel wreath. Skater shoes, pointy felt slippers tapping. Wife beater, red wizard gown flapping. The bard, perhaps, in Flea’s place, with a bass. . À la acid dream of a California college kid’s hostel stay on the Arno. Funky Father loved his shout-outs, too; poetic play name ricochet. Stil novo, old school soul. My perhaps more holistic hermeneutic re-hash for a more modern epoch: “Guido! Whatcha do-in’ ?” (Standin’ on the verge of getting it on). “Cino! Are you groovin’?” (Standin’ on the verge of getting it on, just gettin’ it on). Like a seedy, Beat hat-tip to Burroughs. He hears you, man. We hear you. Celestial rose sing-along, resonating surge through music-ing sfide (Clean it up, now, Gianni!), the jam, the drum-off in your tenzone, nodding “amen”-spike in the sonnet line, canzone-song, terzina transcendental. Choir robes—obviously—included. A closed-eyed Virgil, over there in the corner, is clapping his hands: call and response. Even if you don’t dig it, doesn’t mean it’s not the thing or the thing to do—could be just for yoou. R

Untitled Bin Han

Envy Daniel Maloney Inspired by Ogden Nash The grass is always greener And the people are much less meaner Except in the desert— That’s just cleaner.

The Smell of Sadness Laura Estrada Prada

What does sadness smell like, if not of me, of every one of my freckles? (Do I really know them all?) What did that melancholy that used to follow me smell like, if not of that character I invented in order to understand an ‘I’ that I am still trying to find? (Don’t adopt pseudonyms, for at one point they can confuse the invented certainty of who you think you are...and then, you look for yourself in places where you are not.) What is the difference between sadness and melancholy? Does the answer lie in their macabre syntactical kinship, even though their letters are not at all similar? What does sadness smell like, you asked me... Sadness smells like that which you and I both discovered under the covers, watching movies and imagining futures that were tainted by a bohemian shade that is no longer possible. (Did you feel that subtle smell? That odd chill that is sadness?) Sadness, I tell you, smells like honey after it expires. Sadness smells of what once was and is no more. Sadness smells of three cups of tea after a three-month diet of tears. (I really don’t know if that is actually the smell of sadness, but I do know that sadness tastes a bit like peppermint sometimes. And if you smell the air on a gray day that has not yet shed a drop, the air smells minty.) Sadness smells of what the air smells like when clouds want to cry but do not have enough tears. Tears, drops that tear the tears in clouds, tears that tear and tire. Drops tire out and one can no longer cry. It is then that it all smells of too much sadness...sadness and a little bit of peppermint tea. (How many times have I told you that there is no such thing as a scent that can cover the stench of sadness?) What does sadness smell like, you asked me...my attempts to answer, I see, are futile. Because I don’t really know what sadness smells like. I can only tell you of mine. My sadness smells of what my words smell like, because when I’m sad I take too many words with me as I walk around this city. My sadness smells of yesterday’s coffee as it still 8

sits in a forgotten cup; yesterdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coffee with too much sugar that has turned into a sort of melancholic molasses. My sadness smells of hands stained with paint at three in the morning after a night of hopeless attempts at emptying my thoughts. My sadness smells of all those dawns I have not yet seen...with you. My sadness smells of all those whispers that my lover left between the lines of the letters he once wrote to me. My sadness smells like my mornings, like my days...some days you feel a stronger smell when you pass by me. Other days, you almost donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t notice it. R

The Inevitable (Oil) Francesca Aka

Untitled Bin Han

trust Rich Moore

dream day of sepia night swim wave of mind lit light memory blur last sound bite loop synapse to insight random gift unperceived sight in repose heart and mind come to close deep sleep note answer unwrote keep feeling without dawn light stealing trust vision with decision

Description of a Roman Catcall Ellen Gardin

In imitation of Jonathan Swift Was walking alone one brisk autumn eve, When I heard a noise I just couldn’t believe. A voice so sweet I thought my pants might melt But instead of arousal, left my heart with a welt. Velvet vocalization of just three small words: “Che bel culetto!” my belly fluttered, full of birds. I looked in his direction and tried not to heave, I knew what he wanted, I’m not so naïve But there’s no way in hell I’d wank his Roman dick-sleeve. He isn’t an outlier, this isn’t a fluke, It’s an everyday occurrence that’s hard to rebuke. Simple-minded men, likely missing a chromosome, Think it easiest to get a woman by following her home. On the 75 bus I always keep my cheeks tensed, Otherwise my ass will get rubbed up against. On the road returning from a late night out, I know I’ll be harassed, without a sliver of doubt. It seems the men in this country lack any shame, Even Papa Francesco would grope a fair dame. Welcome to the great city of Rome, Where all handsome men have been ditched in catacombs. Whatever happened to the old days of yore, When boys, rejected, didn’t call you a whore? The reason, I think, today’s men are so riled, Is that unlike the Ancients they’re denied all things penile. From Tiberius’s library of anal pleasure, I’d judge Rome once knew the value of our backside treasure. Sweet Nero castrated his little man-wife, Shall I do Paolo the same with my pocketknife? Solely poor Claudius was a womanizing fink, Likely because he never once screwed a twink. If my suitors had just tried out being a bottom, Perhaps they would have gotten some action this autumn.

Alas here in Rome I’m stuck with these gents, Who care not enough to procure some consent. Alessio, with his brows waxed to perfection, Doesn’t even bother to hide his erection, His hair is slicked back and his collar is popped, But I would prefer him if his dick were chopped. Carlo, alas, shares a name with my dad, But has nothing else in common with that good lad, When I exit the tram, he follows me off, Pretends to make a call when he sees me scoff, What a coincidence: we’re headed to the same caffè, See him stare at my tits; I dream of catching a bouquet. What will he say on our wedding day, blessed: He knew I was the one with but a glance at my chest? Maybe it’s true that they’re just being nice, And I’m a frigid bitch with a bra made of ice. But nothing makes me feel more pissed off and hostile, Than a guy wearing Hogans who tells me to smile. Or perhaps I’m exaggerating and it’s always been this way, The wise poet Ovid did basically say, If a woman resists, use force to get laid. At least in the old days when Romeo’s courtship went awry, He had the decency to do himself in and just die. If only more men would just follow suit, When denied by women: give themselves the boot. In must be something genetically inherent, That makes boys’ intentions so grossly apparent. But often these boys are not boys but men, With saggy skin flopping, roosters clucking at hens. I wish they would stop but there’s not much I can do, Should just find an old man whose wealth to accrue. I guess that’s just Rome and it’ll never get better, Perhaps I will send my next suitor this letter.

The Garbo Angel Daniel Maloney

The angel with the Garbo pout Just wanted her solitude back. The clouds were too crowded and heaven too loud, So she determined To just get out. So she flew to a chapel And propped up a frame But then she got stuck there And forgot Even her name. She turned golden and shiny And forgot how to speak And just watches pilgrims Light candles Each day of the week. It might not be home But at least, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alone In a dark, dusty chapel in a church here in Rome.

Reflections Rebecca Fowler

Three Crown Chorus II. Tuscans in the Cupboard (Short Version) Kristen Hook New Nero’s English tutor told him that Italians struggle With double “had had”s because he reckons There’s a dinky Dante, a piccolo Petrarca that poofs up On their shoulder whenever a would-be-one Creeps to the tongue: “Don’t do it!” This is why the guy teaches English and not Italian, I say; that makes no sense at all. I like the idea, though Though it could probably be applied to things better Fitting than linguistic correction: Orthodoxy is what was made of these rebels!—says Marxist Hermione Granger— …Petrarch at best—and a stretch. But maybe, just maybe, a bitty Bembo? (The “had had” thing still makes no sense). New Nero regrets ever saying a word. I’m reminded of the votive Alighieri— Made in Vietnam, I suppose—gesturing On my desk to a tray of blobby white candles, Michelino-modeled, like a terracotta Madonna. (The first two lines in his open tome read: “EL MEZO UL CHAMINO.”) But I’ve already written one of these on the guy, and besides— My more immediate, imagined experience is with finger-sized Florentines of a friskier sort.

The specimen in question now taps on my shoulder, donning a Blues Brothers suit and fedora for the occasion. He takes one look at the red-bled brick-thick block of paper he finds me hunched over and raises his brow, and sighs —You have something else to do now, e lo sai Ehm. A one, and a two: (tell, tell, tell them how we do)— He tells me to take it away: I take my morning coffee with Boccaccio Galeotto yawns as I crawl out of bed And sprawls himself to one page or another; Chi lo scrisse climbs out scratching ass and head. The Tuscan tangoes with my cucchiaino He tells me who what he did last night and then The finger giving to my tired translations Reads a novella to me start to end. “Cowards! Soul-suckers!” we cry out in tandem. Intro: Day 4 till we in face are red. To chi, undone by id, Unknown, or Nature Marks territory with spree-peeing pen. “Parnasso, di te, sì, ce ne freghiamo, If Parnassus means we have to hang with them. And (no offense),” he says, “who’s ever wanted A self-concerned philo-logist for friend?” He spins another tale then for me, trailing Along each word, sugar stuck to his toes And how I hate to see his disappointment Each time I tell him, “Giò—I’ve got to go.” I thank him for the company and pep-talk, Tell him he’s looking fine; he smiles then. “You know the drill—I’ll see you here tomorrow. It’s Saturday; can we make it after ten?”

R 17

Over and Out Maysan Nasser

A plane lands from Rome at 2:11 a.m. The sister of the one that harbored me in between two flesh-crazed cave men that reeked of oppression. The sister of the one that delivered me back to the womb, in a confused urgency, of one who no longer knows whether the umbilical cord is wrapped around the neck or across the pond. It’s such a confused relationship, battered with too much of everything. C’est beaucoup trop, the French say, it is much too much. It is much too much...but isn’t everything? The faces rusted with disgust, the streets exhausted by the dust of human trivia, the water saturated with human waste, the everything, the everything, even the rain drops are sodden with hate. See, there is a perplexity to my disgust, though; one of ignorance dripped on emptied horizons, ravaged too quickly and not thoroughly enough. There is a perplexity to my disgust, flavored with a sprinkle of skimmed irony, that maintains a dim sense of flustered belief; at times drowning in cigarette butts, at others chuckling like a mad child against the warmth of strange hands in late night beds worn out with fearful sweats of a hypochondriac’s manic anxieties. There’s a perplexity to my disgust, that grinds my teeth for me, second-guesses my beliefs for me, approaches me in the mirror and screams—at me—for me. There is a hushed fear of madness rooted that whispers, “You are sentenced to a lifetime of rotten question marks and compulsive commas.” You see, there is a fear of words shaping me while I reciprocate, a fear of not sounding blank enough, of the recurring theme of my mother’s “you’ll never be good enough.” And I yearn to stay, to stray, and to cave all at the same time. To scream, to screech—to scratch out all their undisturbed full stops. To penetrate the white noise with a silence so loud. To hunt down all the scattered whys. To bury the whens and what ifs alongside in a mass genocide of the questioning race. To formulate a sense of being so frightened of fear that it will collapse over itself and flourish into a floating leaf, on a caressing river journeying downstream to the patient sea of utter R oblivion.

Protestant Cemetery Daniel Maloney

Death may be proud Here where strange geometries rule. No Euclidian law or compass can connect His brief candle to her stone shroud Or that family epithet to the wandering cloud. At what angle does the angel mourn, When the shortest distance between Keats’s reverent roses and the looming pyramid— This silent witness trying not to sneeze in the sun’s glow— Is a meandering path? Are there any visitors to this Edenic necropolis Where the only way to make the trees rustle is a dare? No—only anxious shadows who have come early To the green chaos of hereafter from the grey chaos of there.

Nembròt Kristen Hook You are the matted golden retriever, Faded rubber pearl shining at the snout of that drool-pooling halfmoon setting—stupid, truest smile. You drop your beloved at my feet while I read —You loved me once— and gobble it up again, Gollum-glutton, after one cork-pop, concrete bounce as I stretch out my hand to throw it for you. Two can play hard to get. …Or three, teases madam-matrigna Boxing me up tenderly in the Cardboard cubicle for the day, its glossy, one-step-away-from-cellophane film finestrino the prettiest, proverbial everything-lens— Box office, greenhouse, De Wallen red den. O! happy half-orphan, self-made. She is beautiful. Just moments ago she fingered the string along my spine Summoning an unfortunate malfunction, lips pursed, and shrugged and pulled it again: better. The cell shape-shifts: a scriptorium for performing the implacable penance. 20

Flip your antipodes and beautiful Lucifer burrows up to Barbary Romantic with those eggbeater wing things of his. Milton and Mediterranean carrion, third cousins exchange loose (s)kins As I try, terrified, to swallow both the burning nurse and the flaming Father (the brother-son usurper [sister-daughter?]?) Impossibly. Vide, behold: the botched baptism. that barren tundra. The artifice bends— oïl, oc, sì...iò. Red—vendemmia—verbal.

Untitled (Acrylic) Kiana Nakagawa

Protestant Cemetery Kristen Hook I love the headstone, Elizabeth. Really, I do. The ribbon-twisted oboe on one side, the medical staff on the other…Fantastic. Very “me.” (Don’t listen to what Jonathan Middlebury said about your choice of motif: word around town is his wife ended up commissioning an obelisk for him). The cloaked angel on the slab’s south face is haunting. I mean, the way she looks back at sun like that? And the sickle. The stars at her feet are a bit much, perhaps, like something out of a Lisa Frank coloring book—but you tried, Elizabeth, and I’m grateful to you for that. I know you were cross about that day, Elizabeth. “I told him not to go out hunting without his scarf!” I heard you hiccup—the most venom-spiked hiccup I ever did hear— to Miss Annabel Green, the day of the wake. “Everyone told him. The maid, the horse groom, that stupid Pamphili oaf he went out riding with… It’s a bit shocking, really; it was normally only me he never listened to.” But Elizabeth: what ever were you thinking with this inscription? This unnecessarily lengthy, busy, Latin inscription in spindly characters that will probably last but three centuries, if erosive processes are unusually clement? This is a predominantly Protestant cemetery, Elizabeth. You buried me in a Protestant cemetery. I might remind you that I was a French Catholic, but never mind that now. No need to be passive-aggressive. I do believe it’s worth asking, however: do you know how many Protestants and Jews read—or take the time to read—Latin these days? Few in the grand scheme of things, fewer each year. Do you know how many non-Catholics—particularly the Anglo-American slice of the former’s posterity—will read this dead tongue in generations to come? Next to none, doing some basic, socio-cultural math. And seeing as said population till now has made up—and will probably continue to make up—the majority of this place’s pilgrims, I can’t help but wonder whether you did a very good job of taking your intended audience into account. You’re a Protestant, Elizabeth: don’t you remember what Luther did to the Bible? No one is ever going to take the time to read my gravestone, Elizabeth. They’re going to walk by it, admire the pretty oboe and medical staff and grim-reaper-angel, and really wish they had time to figure out what it said before catching the already-late 75 bus. Too bad. They’re never going to hear about what a talented musician I was, how good I was at letting blood, how much I loved fishing or hunting or fencing. They’re never going to hear about that momentous 1842 we spent together in this city, even though you said you wanted to stay in Florence, and I said you were dreaming, but Rome was great, too, and you really liked the Colosseum in the end—right, sweetheart? They are going to read “angina” and think I died of heart palpitations, Elizabeth. No one ever came to bury you next to me, Elizabeth, so I suppose you didn’t remain in Italy after I passed. I wonder what’s written on your tombstone, in what language, and where. Again, I don’t know if all of this is because you were bitter, Elizabeth, but I’m not particularly thrilled, now, either, and you know how Italians love to exaggerate about such colpi d’aria…Elizabeth?—you’d better not be buried in Florence. R 22

C I N E R I BVS . E T. M E M O R IA E MARTII.FRANCISCI.GIORDANO D O M O . PA R I S I I S O Q V I . F O R M A . P R A E S TA N S NAT V R A L I S . I N G E N I I . D E X T E R I TAT E M VS I C E S . E T. M E D I C A E . A RT I S . P E R I T VS PA L E S T R A E . G L A D I AT O R I A E . P I S C AT V S . V E N AT I O N I S AMANTISSIMVS O B . L A B O R E M . V E N A T V. I M P E N S V M ANGINA.AFFECTVS PRIMA.LVCE.XII.KAL.FEB.M.D C C C.XLIII Q V V M . AG E R E T. A N N . X L I I . R O M A E . D E C E S S I T ELISABETHA.LEESON A D. LVC T V M . E T. L AC R I M A S . R E L I C TA C O N I V G I . K A R I S S I M O . P.

John Gibson Nicole Fersko

“To the memory of John Gibson, Sculptor, R.A. Born at Conway 19 June 1790 died at Rome, where he had resided 48 years. 27 Jan. 1866. His native genius strengthened by careful study—he infused the spirit of Grecian art into masterpieces all his own. His character as a man was in unison with his attributes as an artist, beautiful in its simplicity and truthfulness, noble in its dignity and elevation of purpose.” The Protestant Cemetery is quiet and makes me feel at peace with myself—a quietness that leads me to contemplate what is written on the many tombstones of the people buried here. I am touched by how young some of the people were when they died. The flowers surrounding the graves come to life and die, and this action is repeated endlessly. It makes me think about the cycle and brevity of life. Grave after grave, I see not only how very young these people were when they died, but the stories they left behind. I stop in my tracks in front of the grave of the sculptor, John Gibson. The words used to describe him lead me to believe that he lived a fulfilling life. I imagine he was noble as the statues he sculpted. I imagine he was quite attentive to detail and observed human nature to the fullest. I wonder if he was private about his artwork, or if he shared it with his peers. The expression on the head attached to the tombstone is one of reflection. I believe he was always reflecting, taking in every detail so that he could construct his own art. Inspired by the antiquity that surrounded him, he became a real artist in Rome. His illness didn’t stop him. He knew that his days were numbered, but his love for history and art brought him to the birthplace of it all. He owned a little studio in the heart of Rome, where he worked through sleepless nights. He kept in touch with his wife in Wales through letters. She never got to see his sculptures, and only got a sense of what they looked like when he described them in his writing. His love for art was not appreciated among the people in Wales, and Rome was his passion and his life. The day he died he was found in his studio working on the head that is on his tombstone. He had felt so inspired and at ease with himself that he decided to make those feelings apparent in the sculpture of himself. It was not until the day he died that his talent was recognized and his masterful works of art were discovered.

Santa Maria Maggiore Daniel Maloney

We Catholics are guilty people— Genuflecting at every statue, shrine or steeple. So why does the golden lattice of the ceiling Command us to look up from our stooping and kneeling? They know we’ll listen, follow and see I know it too—so why does my roaming eye terrify me? The weight of a freedom so easily lost— Perhaps it’s no fear that scares us most. But up with the gilt and the crests in that ceiling Gaping in awe—we might forget that feeling.

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