by Karla K. Morton

Featured Art: Stowing Sail – Winslow Homer

Vesuvius will claim a day like today—
serene September winds
blowing ashen siren songs
through each sail,

disintegrating each white triangle
as they make their way
across Li Galli Islands,
through the Gulf of Sorrento,

and into this perfect bowl of carbonara,
this excellent Brunello,

sky blues replaced
by the dark dollop of death’s digestivo—
claiming the check
the café
the city of Positano;

the accordion player
pausing only at the thunder of eruption,
then slowing his tarantella
to the flow of lava.

Let them dig us up, love,
10,000 years from now—
with a full belly,
and a third glass of wine,

our legs entwined like spaghetti,
our charred hearts
served up to the gods
at the very same time.

---

Karla K. Morton was the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate and has written twelve collections. Her work has been published by Alaska Quarterly Review, Southword, and Boulevard. She is currently on a Words of Preservation: Poets Laureate National Parks Tour with fellow Texas Poet Laureate, Alan Birkelbach, visiting the National Parks to help culturally preserve them. A percentage of sales from the forthcoming book will benefit the Parks System.