for comfort. I longed to hear those Italian words
again, so I flew to Rome and traveled the whole

peninsula for a summer hoping to be made whole.
With ears open and senses alive I drank in my heritage,
yet amidst the paint and marble, I could never get enough words,
always more words, pouring into me. Then a different hunger
struck me at a hotel in Rome. As the circle was about to close
it broke open suddenly at a point where the love

was weakest. It threw me into a tailspin, this need for love,
this yearning for family, without whom I’d never be whole.
So in mid-August, I came back to be close
to the ones who are a part of my heritage.
Now the years have passed, I’ve married, but still a hunger
possesses me at times, one that cannot be told in words.

My family and I are close, we share a heritage,
there is love and something close to being whole
but the old hunger persists when I hear the music of Italian words.