There’s a black door
in Piazza Della Lepre
with neoclassical figures.
The stairs lead up to a knocking shop,
at the very top.
The best in the city, oh what ceilings!
There’s no lift.
You must walk up the slate stairs.
The stairs are steep.
Not everyone can:
heart seizure, ennui, brain softening
and some who do
never put their nose in the piazza again,
extinguished – it would seem – by rapture.
Number 9, Piazza Della Lepre.
Books have been written
and songs have been sung.
Any man of that age
would have taken their pleasure there
back in the day.
They were young.
They didn’t walk up the stairs.
They – more or less – ran.
