Italian Places

The Runners at San Benedetto

Two runners are crossing the shore by night:
      Their sound on sand, their lithe iambics gauge
The certainty of arrival and return
      Before the dark encroachment of the waters
Smoothes out their footprint frontier. Cloud
      Keeps dulling the cusps of a moon
Just risen. A steadier glow
      From the endless necklace of the lungomare,
A fitful one from the circling beam
      Of a lighthouse that dapples keels
Close-packed, rocking at anchor.
      For lovers crossing the shore by night,
None of this is their concern. They see
      In the unpaved pathway a chosen destiny:
They choose each other and this place,
...