I wonder if you looked back

Palermu

(per nonnino)

I wonder if you looked back

I wonder if you turned back, too

I often put myself in your shoes

-

I needed to leave Palermo by boat, slow

To understand the height of her mountains

How we are nested in the hills and weighed down

by heaven,

To feel the pull of the tide on the boat

Magnetic

As if it would pull us back, under the city itself

And drown us to stop us from going

I needed to watch the sea open up before me

My eyes

And my heart, wide

Like the world was waiting

I never felt as though I was closed

The water lifts up like a ledge

I don’t know what will be on the other side

But I feel as though we will fall

into nothingness

-

I wonder what it felt like leaving.