The Spanish Steps
Closed to the tourists
the steps lounge above us
staring in reverse irony.
Years ago of a hot summer —
seventeen — you sat here for hours
listening to wandering Hippies,
street toughs peddling
their wares.
What is that summer to your
years? Keats’s house is
now refurbished, its earth tones
warm in evening light —
you and I down Via Sistina.
To go back to that awkward age
positioned on sunlit hands
reclined on marble stairs.
In some ways you wait for me there
in traces of gray hair, in
the wrinkles at the edge of your chin —
American boy of summer — with no care
to move on.
I read now in another century
the handsome youths would pose
hoping for an artist’s hands
to render them dearer
and so it would seem I think of you —
the boy you were before —
your body on the steps — idle, new,
restless to be chosen.
​
from Circuit by Walter Holland © 2010