Image by Gabriella Claire Marino
by Rina Palumbo
In Rome, you feel the building up and wearing down of stone, concrete, and steel. That rainy day, we kissed in any covered doorway we could find; the rain on cobblestones made them mirrors, slick, and reflective; it fell on the buildings and made them Technicolor shades of ochre and burnt earth and more prosaic pinks and yellows. We saw one line of men, in pairs and groups, dressed in worker’s clothing – browns, grays, and blues and followed them to an alley where, under a white umbrella, an older woman was taking pizzas out of a free-standing oven. Her eyes went from me to you, and she smiled when you handed her euros, and we sat down at a communal table and sipped wine. When we finished and stood up to leave, she raised her wineglass and announced, “Sposi, saluti!” to the diners, who all raised their glasses, “Saluti!” Words that pulled us into another frame in which covered doorways were exits and entrances, one where we were a pair of people walking in the rain, wearing down the stone, concrete, and steel, and wondering what we could build.
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Rina Palumbo (she/her) is working on a novel and two nonfiction long-form writing projects alongside short fiction, creative nonfiction, and prose poetry. Her work appears in The Hopkins Review, Ghost Parachute, Milk Candy, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Identity Theory, Stonecoast Review, et al.
