A Visit To The Covid Bookstore

Kevin Sanchez Walsh

I dreamed I was in a foreign city

Traveling with my wife

Everyone’s speaking Italian

And we’re in a book shop

They still have them

And that’s the kind of place

We always end up

And she speaks well enough

To tell them what she’s looking for

Books on masks, le maschere

Or some such, and although I’m with her

And could ask my wife for help

In expressing what I’m looking for

I can’t get the words out of my mouth

I need the Italian words or phrases

For the people who work in cemeteries

Becchini, no, the people who specifically

Shovel the dirt, imprenditore di pompe funebri

No, not the casket sellers or the groundskeepers,

But the dirt shovelers, the grave diggers, in Italian

Them, and only them! That is key. No, not giardiniere

Gardeners, no, it must be specific, current, accurate,

And I must have it now, this instant

As I am writing a book about death and dying

For there is so much of it around us

Surely my book will become very popular

And I will write this book in Italian

A language I do not know

So I must have this word

I must have it to begin.

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