Angel in a Wooden Bra / Page 16 of 20


	in country the windows in Italy have no mesh metal screens, nothing to keep out insects. just loose flapped wooden shutters and a rusted cast iron railing for me to lean on and look out at the persimmon colored roof tiles. a copper dome. the black metal cathedral bells against a purple sky ringing for sunset mass. this afternoon in SS Annunziata 10 people waited impatiently for an open confessional booth. the signs over each booth listing the languages the priest inside spoke were Italiano. Italiano, and Italiano. nothing for the tourists today. and in the south chapel, 5 people knelt in pews prayed before a glass case with a beauty-sleep-prefect corpse. to all appearances, the uncorrupted body of a saint who died 500 years ago. on the laptop computer screen at the kitchen table behind me is the picture I took today with a digital camera with streaks from raindrops or sun flares as if the cathedral with Dante's statue and Michelangelo's crypt was firing tracer rounds into the clouds. though I think Dean or I would have noticed bursts of angels fleeing religious structures. standing at the iron rail, 3 and a half stories up in a subdivided 16th century palazzo, the line blurs between my miracles and the ones belonging to the locals.

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