Nonna was a dirty dog of a woman. She was Sexpot Supreme;
and her weapon was cuisine. She loved my grandfather indecently:
rolled a blanket of golden polenta over the kitchen table,
covered it in tiny sausages, slippery mushrooms,
ground beef. She fisted a pot of tomatoes, garlic wiggling
like crickets in a pool of red sauce: I think she even
climbed inside some days. She was wild, fearless:
turned a cow’s belly inside out, decapitated tender tubes of squid,
reached inside their hollow bodies with a palmful of bread
and egg and parsley, re-fashioned their mantle to football-shape,
until the sea could no longer recognize them. She back-rubbed
bread dough with biceps. In spring, she plucked
zucchini flowers, their petals a woman’s bright bloom,
fried them in thick oil, their silky guts pregnant with ricotta.
Her artichokes, when steamed, opened their leaf-arms
and leaf-legs: when torn apart, limb-for-limb, the jewel
of the vegetable, its most secret muscle, was deep down in.
She made it all so hot, that Nonno could not live without her.
This is why, my grandmother, beast-mad about dying,
said she would return to him as a dog. He has been trying
to find her ever since. He adopted six mutts, each one
a potential incarnation of her. He hand-feeds the hounds
her favorite foods, aching to see her heat in their eyes.
He walks them up and down the ancient staircase
of our haunted home. Nonno and I, both widowed, both silvered,
glide over sidewalks, barely touching our toes to concrete.
We are begging the ghosts of this city to come back
from the moon, into our beds.