Thursday, Taxi from Linate

The driver hears my accent and says
Le Marche? —
the way some men say the name
of a woman they once knew.
Yes. My grandfather. The Conero,
the white road that drops to the sea
between two olive trees.
Mine too, he says,
though I doubt it,
and I love him for the lie. So I tell him a smaller one back:
that I’m only in Milan for one night,
when I know it will be three.
We are even now.
He laughs — a big, wet, southern laugh
that belongs to no consultant I have ever met —
and turns up the radio:
some old Battisti song
about a woman waiting in a yellow house. For ten minutes
I do not think about the keynote at seven.
The Milan traffic parts
like a slow book opening.
I notice everything fast, the way I always have:
the woman on the scooter with the dog in her jacket,
the boy reading Pavese at the red light,
the smell of pizza al taglio from a doorway
I will think about all evening.
Past the cathedral, past the bank towers,
past the Italy that pays my fees
and forgets my name. When we arrive
I tip him more than I should
for a reason that has nothing to do
with the keynote,
and everything to do
with two men who have just agreed
to misremember the same coast.

*

Gabriele Micozzi is an Italian poet, writer, professor, and consultant from the Marche region of Italy. He has published poetry with Transeuropa, AttraVerso, and GFE, and essays with FrancoAngeli and Dario Flaccovio. His recent work explores work, travel, family, identity, and the quiet fractures of contemporary life.