In my travels in Rome,
I have imagined myself to be a Roman pigeon.
Le mie amicizie con gli altri pigioni
Are tied together by an internal rhythm
That synchronizes us
And scatters us in the wind.

We aren’t bound by the confines of
The indirectness of the ancient cobblestone streets
Lined by i negozi e monumental buildings
Tied to histories that we’ve no space to comprehend.

We drift as we please
Among piazze e monumenti e le strade,
Sometimes among the people,
And other times much higher
Than their bodies could reach.

Our hearts, each our own,
Beat together when we flock closely,
Our nearness felt from the inside.

We come to rest
On the tops, the edges, the curves
Of ancient sculptures of stone,
Weighted heavy and still to the ground.

Their stillness alone
Reminds us that some ways of life
Thrive on the slow-weathering, sustained stone weight
That our light hearts will never know.

Nel mio sogno,
We pigeons know the space of this city
from above the rooftops,
The edges of balconies,
And the inner crevices of stone sculptures.